McCarten on Electoral Finance Bill

Okay you know you have problems when even hard left activists such as Matt McCarten have their column labelled “Media gain more power when voice of democracy is muffled”:

Any Government that sets new rules for its own election that also affect its political opponents is going to create controversy. After all, we are talking about who gets to be prime minister and who gets to be an MP.

Incredulously, Labour’s common sense and well-honed political instincts seem to have deserted the party over this matter. It has been a botch-up from day one.

When this issue emerged, it was obvious that the only credible solution was to bring in a royal commission to consider all options.

Despite mounting opposition, Labour seems determined to push ahead. United Future and NZ First might support the bill but I’m surprised that the Greens are prepared to do back-room deals on it.

Seldom will the media run a partisan political campaign. So it was an extraordinary decision for the New Zealand Herald to launch a campaign against the proposed campaign law. A headline banner across the front page, reading “Democracy under attack” would have had most of us thinking that it was referring to the mischief created by the Urewera 16 – not the Government.

Such a defiant show of power by our nation’s biggest newspaper wouldn’t have been taken lightly. I’m sure this will result IN some MPs backing off on at least some of the proposed changes – which is good. However, the damage is done. The perception that Labour and its allies were up to no good is now ingrained in the public psyche.

Labour’s proposal is that everyone except political parties is neutralised and that parties’ private campaign funds are severely limited. That means the only viable way voters can get their political news and analysis is through the privately owned media, especially television and newspapers.

If Labour succeeds in curtailing non-party voices and influence, that puts even more power into the owners of our media outlets. The question not being asked is: during the next election, who’s going to be watching the watchers?

The increase in power to the media is of course a totally natural consequence of banning people from being able to effectively communicate their own message.  The media become the arbiter of which messages are worthy of being passed on to the public, and which are not.

McCarten is also quite correct in stating that some sort of neutral body such as a Royal Commission should have been engaged.   The public have been almost totally shut out of the debate – they got a one off submission to the select committee which is massively different to being able to respond to policy discussion papers, options papers, questionnaires etc.

So now that not even Matt McCarten is backing the Bill, Peter Davis remains the sole supporter!