Electoral Finance Act to be gone in a fortnight

The Herald reports that the Electoral Finance Act will be repealed by the end of next week. Thank God.

The main focus after that will be moving forward on replacement legislation, as I blogged about last week.Anyway the Herald explains:

But the Government will then embark on a cross-party consultation process to rewrite the electoral law.

It has already abandoned the review of the act that was to have been headed by Otago University Associate Professor Andrew Geddis.

Justice Minister Simon Power will take the repeal bill, the Electoral Amendment Bill, through all stages.

He said the plan involved all political parties in consultation.

“We will be taking the Leader of the Opposition [Phil Goff] up on his offer.”

Shortly after becoming Labour leader Mr Goff said Labour had made a mistake in passing the Electoral Finance Act without wider political consensus.

Mr Power said his aim was to have an “enduring legislative framework” for electoral law towards the fourth quarter of next year.

Yeah that is when it needs to be settled by.

Asked how the consultation would take place, he said he would be leading the discussion with each political party.

They would have input into an issues paper that would then be open to public and political submissions.

Totally different to the EFA, when no-one at all (except Winston and the Greens) had any input into the law until the bill was introduced. I’m very pleased to see a commitment to allowing the public (not just parties) to respond to an issues paper, rather than only to have a select committee submission.