Some good, some bad ideas
Newsroom reports:
A new report has warned of “serious storm clouds” on New Zealand’s democratic horizon, calling on the Government to limit voting rights to citizens, crack down on lobbyists and make political parties declare the source of all donations.
Let’s take these in turn:
Chapple said Parliament and the public service did not represent New Zealand society when it came to wealth and socio-economic backgrounds, while voter participation in local and national elections had been declining since World War II.
Our turnout was 80% of those enrolled which isn’t bad. In 1931 it was 83%. The big decline wasn’t so much post WWII but since 1984 which was 94%. And the last two elections has seen it increase by 3.7% and 1.9% respectively.
He said the MMP electoral system had led to lower levels of public scrutiny for list MPs, “and a developing notion that at least some of these MPs informally represent an ethnic community rather than New Zealanders as a whole”.
“The move to MMP has coincided with the growth of identity politics, which has a tendency to formalise and reify the fracture lines of identity groups as the basis for political action, rather than to break down group barriers, emphasise a common humanity and seek shared ground.”
If that is a concern, then surely the Maori seats are a bigger concern. They explicitly are for one ethnic community rather than New Zealanders as a whole.
Chapple said one solution was to “consciously limit” democratic rights to citizens, setting up civic education programmes that would run in parallel with the pathway from residency to citizenship.
“New migrants should be strongly encouraged to become citizens, rather than remaining indefinitely as simply sojourning residents.”
I am 100% in favour of this. Very few countries allow non-citizens to vote, like we do. we provide little incentive for residents to become citizens and we should as shared citiizenship builds communities.
He called for an outright ban on any foreign contributions to political parties – currently there is a $1500 limit – as well as a requirement that all domestic donations be declared regardless of their size, source or nature.
The $1,500 limit is already pretty low. It is designed so that parties don’t have to verify the identity of every raffle ticket buyer etc. You could lower it to say $500 but less than that would just be an admin nightmare.
And what is the problem trying to be solved? The total level of overseas donations across all parties is probably a few thousand dollars out of $10 million or so. It is a solution looking for a problem.
As for requiring every $20 donation to be disclosed, that is basically what they have in the US. It leads to more dark money and fewer small donations. Just as voting is by secret ballot, so should be smallish donations. The main impact of requiring small donations to be disclosed is to stop them, or to allow partisans to vilify people who have donated to the other side – as happens in the US. Why do we think US donation laws are what we want here?
Chapple said there also needed to be greater transparency around political lobbying, such as conflict of interest provisions, stand-down periods for both politicians and public servants to avoid “revolving-door appointments”, and a ban on MPs holding membership of foreign political parties.
Again what is the problem this solution solves? Is it a problem a former National MP become executive director of the funeral directors association?
As for MPs being members of foreign political parties, I agree this is undesirable. But is this a problem? Are any MPs? What if an MP has been a member of an Australian union and hence is a de facto member of the Australian Labor Party?
He suggested the introduction of a strong civics programme at schools, coupled with lowering the voting age to 16 – although he acknowledged there would be “significant political challenges to overcome”, including a perception that most teachers held centre-left beliefs.
A perception?
Addressing concerns about the decline of traditional media and “fracturing” of media sources into groups identifiable by ideology, Chapple said there was a need for “well-funded, independent state-funded” outlet covering multiple platforms and languages which was “clearly and consistently politically neutral”.
You can be state funded or politically neutral but not both. Any state funded media outlet automatically leans left because they have a vested self interest to support parties that promise higher taxes and spending. It isn’t conscious bias but unconscious.