What the Electoral Commission said

It is timely to look at what the Electoral Commission said on the Electoral Finance Bill. Before we do that, let us look at who makes up the Electoral Commission. It is:

• Hon. Anthony (Tony) Ellis QC (Sadly Mr Ellis has passed away, replacement Chair yet to be appointed)
• Joe Williams
• Belinda Clark
• Dr Helena Catt

More useful is their roles. Two of them are current or former Judges, one is the Secretary for Justice and Dr Catt is the CE of the Commission. Beyond doubt politically neutral, and have no partisan interest in the outcome – unlike MPs. This doesn’t mean their views can not be disagreed with, but it means you have to think very very carefully about why you wouldn’t listen to the people who are non partisan, and the experts in this area. For they have to make the law work.

I’ve not yet gone through all their advice, but here’s some major elements which differ from the Select Committee:

1. No restrictions on when you can register as a third party.
2. To index spending and registration limits to inflation every three years (failure to do so means one is decreasing the effective limit)
3. Only requiring registration as a third party if the spend is over $40,000 (unless the amount is significant, why discourage people from participating)
4. Allowing third parties to spend up to $250,000 to $300,000
5. Setting the limit at which parties can accept anonymous donations as $3,000 to $5,000 instead of $1,000

All pretty sensible stuff.

The amount third parties can spend is a key one. I incidentially also advocated $250,000. You see there are two levels of spending one should look at, in setting a limit.

1. How much does a third party need to spend to be effective? You see if the limit is set below that level, then you defeat the entire purpose of having advocacy in a democratic society. How much money do you need to spend to be able to effectively communicate a message to the target of 2.7 million people.
2. How much spending constitutes starting to drown out or dominate the debate? The limit at which the ad on TV is appearing every day for weeks on end, or in every newspaper repeatedly.

So the limit for third parties (there is an argument that there should be no limit, but this is accepting that you have a limit as political parties have a limit) should be between (1) and (2).

I think (1) is around $250,000. I’d put (2) at probably $750,000+ type territory. So by even going for a limit of $250,000 (which I and the Electoral Commission proposed) you are far closer to the lower level (1) than the higher level (2).

$120,000 does not buy you much advertising. It is around 5c per voter. So having a limit at half of what the neutral officials have advised, raises the very real suspicion that it is designed not to stop a third party from unfairly dominating the election, but to stop them being able to effectively communicate their view.

And remember the ad spend for almost all government promotional campaign is well over $1 million. Now even if you do not think these campaigns are particularly political, think about the fact that the Government itself says hey you need to spend this much money to get your message across.