NZPA on Legalise Pledge Card legislation

The NZ Herald runs an NZPA story on the obscure legislation which will legalise Labour’s pledge card.

Legislation that would allow Labour and other parties to use taxpayer funds for pledge card-type campaigns at the next election was tabled in Parliament yesterday.

But Mr Brownlee said National was against the bill in principle because it gave a huge advantage to incumbent MPs and parties.

He said it was particularly galling that the Government appeared to be liberalising the rules for party spending when it was moving to clamp down on all other groups’ election spending through the Electoral Finance Bill.

From what I can tell, this Bill will not even be referred to select committee. They won’t even let the public have a say on whether taxpayer money should be spent on election pledge cards.

And as Gerry says, it is deeply troubling that Labour moves to liberalise its own spending, while clamping down on everyone outside Parliament.

Do you know what I would do if I was National?  Use their own parliamentary budget to fund a series of billboards and newspaper ads advising people  that billboards and ads like this will legally be able to be run even in the week before the election, funded by taxpayers, and not as party of a party’s spending limit.