NZ Herald Editorial on EPMU eligibility challenge

The Herald’s editorial today refers to my questioning of the EPMU’s eligibility to be listed as a third party under the Electoral Finance Act:

There is delicious irony in the fact that one of the first victims of the Electoral Finance Act is a labour union. The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union has been muzzled for two months while the Electoral Commission considers an objection to the union’s application for a right to advertise its views in election year.

The irony is no coincidence, of course; the objection has been filed by an opponent of the detestable act, website “blogger” David Farrar. He has no real objection to the union’s running political advertisements this year just as it has done in many previous election years. In fact, like all opponents of the act, he would probably say the union should have every right to exercise the same freedom it had before …

Mr Farrar has set out to make fun of the legislation and his objection has succeeded in that aim, whatever the commission’s ultimate ruling. It is ridiculous that there should need to be a regulatory assessment of the union’s ties to the Labour Party before it can do exactly as it has done in the months before previous elections …

But where, then, should the commission draw the line on who might be allowed to register as a “third party” under the act and advertise in a way that might tend to support a party or candidate standing at the election? Pity the commission; it has been handed this pointless, pin-pricking exercise only because the Labour Party lives in excessive fear of private money in politics …

It is entirely healthy that any organisation – industry association, trade union or religious sect – caring enough for a principle or policy to promote it to the electorate should be allowed to do so. Voters are not fools; money cannot speak louder than the merits of the message it is paying for.

We hope the EPMU receives permission to speak this year and we dare hope the challenge to its political rights has given the architects of the act cause to regret. The gag stands to earn considerably more ridicule before it ends at the election.

The Herald is quite correct that my motivation is not to prevent the EPMU from having a voice in election year.  However the issues I raised with the Electoral Commission are not frivolous or done just to delay the EPMU’s application. I have a genuine belief that they are clearly not eligible to register under the law. I would not have written to the Electoral Commission if I did not believe that the law as written means they are ineligible to be registered.