Writing the law to suit oneself

There is no limit to the extent that Labour will go to write electoral laws to suit itself. We’ve heard that the revised bill will have some limits on anonymous donations.

But instead of abolishing them (over the reporting limit), which I would support, the Dom Post reports that one will be allowed $240,000 of anonymous donations over three years.

Now how much money did Labour get in the last election from anon donations? $315,000

Now $65,000 of their anonymous donations could be done non-anoymously if they had people give $10k a year. So taking that away from the $315,000 and you get $250,000 – almost a perfect match.

This is fucking outrageous. We the public have had no chance to have input into that limit. I want a zero limit for anonymous donations (above the reporting threshold). Instead we have a limit hand picked by Labour as allowing them to retain basically all of their anonymous donations.

The public have been totally excluded from any input into what level of anonymous donations, if any, should be allowed. Instead Labour and allies cook up a sweetheart deal designed to do just one thing – preserve Labour’s funding.

Labour have a democracy deficit in their thinking. The Herald nailed them – they think democracy is only useful as a tool to get them elected.

Here’s what National should do. They should move an amendment at the committee of the whole stage to outlaw all anonymous donations (over the reporting limit)
and see if the Greens and NZ First have the balls to vote on principle or vote for their cosy deal with Labour to protect Labour’s funding sources.