Anderton and Dunne get it wrong on Electoral Finance Bill

The NZ Herald has asked party leaders to explain their positions on the Electoral Finance Bill.

Now Jim Anderton recounts how

“anonymous people bought full-page newspaper advertisements in my electorate, printing lies about me on the day before the election.”

He concludes:

Anyone who opposes the Electoral Finance Bill needs to explain why unfair, anonymous, full-page lies on election eve should be allowed.

Jim obviously has not read the Electoral Finance Bill.  For if he had, he would know the above practice is a corrupt practice in the existing Electoral Act 1993, and will only be a less serious illegal practice in the Electoral Finance Act 2007.

The relevant clauses are s 199A in the Electoral Act and clauses 53 and54 in the Electoral Finance Bill.  Under the current law someone doing the above risked prison and listing on the corrupt practices list.  This law change downgrades to that a maximum $10,000 fine.

Peter Dunne also gets it wrong, again.  He says:

The EFB places similar limits [on how much political parties and individual candidates can spend on election campaigns] on lobby groups promoting a political party during an election campaign.

The limit under the Electoral Act 1993 is $0. The limit under the Electoral Finance Act 2007 will be the same.