Dom Post on Electoral Finance law
The Dom Post editorial:
Four year after being caught with their fingers in the parliamentary cookie jar, politicians are finally putting their affairs in order.
A parliamentary select committee has agreed to redefine the legal meaning of electioneering to make it clear that public funds cannot be used for pledge cards and other campaign material.
This is the good bit. The rules about what can be funded out of parliamentary budgets will be tighter than ever before, during the regulated period.
The change is contained in the bill that replaces the odious Electoral Finance Act – Labour’s attempt to tilt the electoral playing field in its favour by restricting the rights of its critics to express themselves in election year.
The new bill loosens the restrictions but, regrettably, does not remove them. Justice Minister Simon Power has put broad parliamentary consensus ahead of his National colleagues’ views, who loudly opposed any restriction on free speech when Labour and its allies pushed the Electoral Finance Bill through in 2007.
Labour have basically got the law they wanted.
Labour and the Greens argue that the cap is necessary to prevent wealthy interests “buying” elections. However, that could have been achieved without compromising free speech simply by requiring those who want to spend large amounts of money broadcasting their views to disclose their identities – something the new bill already requires them to do.
Voters are not stupid. If they know who is paying for advertising campaigns, they know whose interests are being served.
Indeed, and the 2010 US elections clearly showed you can not buy an election. Meg Whitman spent almost $200m on her bid to be Governor of California and she lost by a massive 14%.
Mr Power has also balked at reforming the broadcasting regime that unfairly advantages incumbent parties and politicians for the same reason.
He could not gain widespread parliamentary support for changes to the system, which gives the major parties the lion’s share of broadcasting funds and prohibits their opponents from buying TV and radio time with their own money.
Here is what annoys me. That Labour were both allowed to veto changes to the broadcasting regime, and were also allowed to get third party spending restrictions put in place, despite National opposition. What did National get in return – a miserly $5,000 extra per electorate spending.
The principle underlying the new legislation should have been transparency. Sunlight is the best protection against the buying and selling of influence.
Mr Power’s bill falls well short of the ideal, but it is still a quantum improvement on its Labour predecessor.
I agree.