Dom Post on dirty washing

I didn’t wake up until midday yesterday (still on Indian time) and so much happened in the afternoon that I didn’t get to read the Dom Post until very late in the evening. Hence I didn’t blog their editorial earlier on. Extracts:

Until last week there may somewhere have been someone who believed the Electoral Finance Act was a genuine, if misguided, attempt to “provide more transparency and accountability in the democratic process”. No longer, The Dominion Post writes.

The revelation that Labour Party president Mike Williams misled the public about a $100,000 loan made to the party by a wealthy expatriate businessman, Owen Glenn, shows the act for what it is – a stratagem to muzzle critics of the Government. Labour’s purpose in limiting “third party” advocacy was not to improve the transparency of the system or “to prevent the undue influence of wealth”, but to deny oxygen to its critics while allowing it to continue accepting the aid of its own wealthy backers.

Well partially.  It is also about allowing them to spend taxpayer money on their campaign with less controls.

… In accepting Mr Glenn’s generosity Labour did nothing that National has not done. Labour’s main rival has long relied on wealthy backers, many of whom have kept their identities secret, to fund its operations. And there is nothing wrong with Mr Glenn giving money to Labour. A healthy democracy relies upon people giving time and money to political parties.

Indeed.

But there is something very wrong about a party which has changed the law, supposedly to promote greater transparency and reduce the influence of what its deputy leader calls “rich pricks”, soliciting assistance from those same individuals and then denying it has received any assistance.

The word the editorial writer is looking for is “hypocrisy”.  As he or she is not in Parliament, they are allowed to use it.

Politically, Mr Glenn is now an embarrassment to Labour. His interest in being appointed honorary consul to Monaco and his “jest” that Miss Clark offered him a Cabinet post have become the subject of parliamentary scrutiny and his reason for making the original $500,000 donation – to counter the Exclusive Brethren’s “sneaky” campaign against the party – does not accord with the facts. The donation was made months before the Brethren campaign began.

I would still like someone to ask him on the record why he said it, and what was his real motivation. Or at least ask his PR firm so they can earn some extra money writing a good response.

But giving $7.5 million to the University of Auckland’s new business school and supporting it with scholarships worth $600,000 a year is as good a reason as most for making someone an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Thanks to Mr Williams’ evasiveness, however, the honour will always be clouded by the suspicion that it was awarded for services to the Labour Party rather than to business and the community.

Which is somewhat of a shame.  One doesn’t want to discourage people from being generous.  But Mr Glenn partially has himself to blame for the murkiness now surrounding his generosity.