Geddis on Electoral Finance Act

Associate Professor Andrew Geddis had an article appear in the latest issue of the Otago Graduate magazine on the Electoral Finance Act. Geddis is one of the leading academics on electoral financing, and one of those most commonly quoted as to the problems with the old Electoral Act. He is generally, I think it is fair to say, a supporter of more comprehensive regulations on political financing.

This makes his comments on the Electoral Finance Act more noteworthy. Some extracts:

• The Electoral Finance Act has caused damage to our electoral process that now needs fixing
• A good portion of the blame fir the present situation lies with the legislation’s authors
• The way the Labour-led Government went about enacting those reforms was ill-considered and overly rushed
• It is hard to see how Parliament alone can now put the matter right

I have attached the full article as a pdf geddis-efa-article so people can read it in full, and not just my extracts.