Labour breaching electoral law

Whale Oil quotes Newstalk ZB:

“It’s given an advi­sory opin­ion a “Stop Asset Sales” flyer is a party adver­tise­ment and doesn’t sat­isfy statu­tory require­ments for a pro­moter state­ment  …  Although the flyer does con­tain Phil Goff’s name and Par­lia­ment Build­ings as his address, the Com­mis­sion advises that doesn’t sat­isfy statu­tory require­ments … The Com­mis­sion is con­sid­er­ing whether this is seri­ous enough to report to police.”

Labour have a long history of breaking and ignoring electoral law, back to 2005 when they deliberately over-spent by $400,000 despite multiple warnings.

Even a defence of honest different opinion is not much of a defence, as the new law allows a party or MP to take a proposed advertisement to the Electoral Commission to get an advisory opinion on whether it constitutes an advertisement and complies with the law.

All Labour had to do was to take their draft advertisement to the Electoral Commission, before printing them, to check they comply. They chose not to do so until after they printed them.