ODT on Electoral Finance Act

Someone has scanned in and e-mailed me the ODT editorial.  Some extracts:

Labour’s revenge

Maori Party MP Hone Harawira had it about right: “If this was only about election finances, then why did this Labour Government push through special legislation to validate their $800,000 over-spend at the last election, rather than let the legal process take its natural course . . . why didn’t this Labour Government ask the Auditor-general and the Electoral Commission to present a range of options for public consideration, and presentation to the House. . . how come the Human Rights Commission says this Bill is a dramatic assault on fundamental human rights – freedom of expression, and the right to participate in the election process . . . how come the Human Rights Commission says that even this rewritten; flea-bitten, revised and patched-up version should still have been given back to the public for full discussion and debate?”

By limiting the amount so- called “third parties” can spend on political campaign activities of any kind – be it support or opposition, saving the whales or completing Dunedin’s motorway – the Bill is anti-democratic for it will tend to restrain and discourage dissent from those who wish to make such causes .influential in electoral terms by advocating for or against political parties or candidates; it will thus tend to weigh the balance further in favour of incumbent governments in election years. Nor will the Bill prevent unlimited party donations from overseas persons, from which Labour in particular benefited in 2005, nor from organisations with a relationship with the Labour Party, such as trade unions.

If the “law of common sense” is to guarantee our basic freedoms against political manipulation, then we are indeed in peril. The most offensive aspect of this legislation, however, is the Government and its supporters’ distrust of the people: that we voters are too stupid to recognise “undue influence”, too ready to believe any propaganda thrust in our faces.

And the cartoon which went with it: