Electoral Finance Act articles

The Herald has a number of articles on the Electoral Finance Act. First this useful summary of decisions made and pending this year.

Then we have a roundup of opinion on the Bill:

But Justice Minister Annette King defends the act, saying it has made all political parties “take stock of what they do, and I think that is not a bad thing.

“People have to be transparent about what money they are spending and where they get it from and how they are spending it, and that was the intention of the bill.”

Annette King would be lynched by her colleagues if they thought she meant what she said. They hate the bill now, as they are now all risking electoral petitions as no-one knows what they can spend.

And King also misleads by saying the intention of the bill is for transparency over where parties get money from. The EFB had no provisions on anonymous donations etc – they were added in by the Select Committee. So how can it have been the intention of the Bill, when they were not even in the Bill her Government introduced?

Bill English does a nice summary:

“Trying to restrict the political opinions of non-politicians is hazardous is bad in principle and has turned out to be very difficult to do in law.”

Annette King says:

She had heard National had a war chest of about $5 million – which would mean National could have spent more than the maximum, $2.6 million, outside the regulated period.

That would have made “absolute nonsense of democracy and freedom of speech.”

Don’t you love a Justice Minister who supports oppressive legislation on the basis of a rumour.  And we await Annette condemning Barack Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton as making “absolute nonsense of democracy and freedom of speech” as he spent more money than her.

Then John Armstrong has his view:

If the law is sometimes an ass, then the Electoral Finance Act has proved to be a real donkey when it comes to stupidity, inflexibility and sheer unworkability. …

Things have reached truly Kafkaesque proportions when it is considered necessary to remove references to the “Labour-led Government” from Budget press statements for fear they will be deemed to be election advertisements and breach the act by not being properly authorised as such.

The measure is a textbook example of how not to write legislation. It sought to close every conceivable loophole through which someone or some organisation might climb in order to thwart long-established rules on party advertising during election campaigns. …

The act’s secondary purpose is to enable Labour to keep using taxpayer’s money for what is effectively electioneering through raiding its parliamentary budget – the case with its tax cuts brochure which hit the headlines last week for using a stock photo of an American family on its cover, rather than an actual New Zealand family.

Like a nagging toothache, the act is going to keep giving Labour bother. But it has probably already inflicted as much damage on the party as it is ever going to – another reason why Labour is unlikely to retreat from the act’s questionable provisions.

Yep they’ll keep defending it until after the election and then they’ll quietly amend it.

Finally we have the Herald editorial:

The nation is halfway through a legislated farce. The Electoral Finance Act passed six months ago today has imposed restrictions on political spending that will remain until election day but surely will be repealed before another election year arrives. A review seems likely even if Labour leads the Government that emerges from this year’s ballot. Labour’s vindictive legislation has given it more headaches than it ever imagined when it set out to curb campaigns such as that which seven Exclusive Brethren ran last time.

It was classic utu – designed to shut down opponents of the Government.

All parties are feeling their way in the dark, as is the poor Electoral Commission that has been charged with interpreting and enforcing a law that was conceived in spite, drafted in haste and passed in disgrace. It was blatantly partisan, which electoral arrangements should never be, enacted without reference to the Law Commission or any independent constitutional authority.

This remains the real damage done by the EFA – the process used to develop it in secret with no bipartisan consultation. There was no public policy process or consultation prior to writing the EFB.

Public service interests and labour unions will study the rules, business interests and ordinary citizens will not be bothered. The Labour Party might be prepared to submit every intended publication of an MP or candidate to a committee headed by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff no less, and its supporting unions might be prepared to run the gauntlet of legal action for the sake of promoting their political interests, but most people have better things to do.

Which is the intention – to scare the public off.

Political participation should never have been restricted in this way. After six ludicrous months it is possible to look forward in reasonable confidence, whoever forms the government, that this discredited act will not stain our liberties forever.

I would have little faith that if Labour are in Government, they will improve the Act. Sure they will change it to remove some of the uncertainty – to make it easier for them to spend taxpayer money and not have it count. But not easier for everyone else.