Some terrible and some good electoral proposals from the Justice Committee

Overall the report from the Justice Committee on the 2017 general election and 2016 local elections is a paranoid screed of problems, with some terrible “solutions”. There are also some worthwhile recommendations also. I suspect the Government will do all the terrible stuff, and leave alone the worthwhile stuff. I hope I’m wrong.

I’ll comment on some of the recommendations.

We recommend that the Government ask the Electoral Commission, in its report on the 2020 General Election, specifically to address the issue of astroturfing and ways that New Zealand can deal with it.

They ask for a report on how to stop astroturfing yet note they did not receive any evidence of astroturfing in the 2017 election. Not content with actual problems, they decided to go after imaginary ones.

We recommend that the Government give the Electoral Commission investigatory, enforcement, and sanction powers commensurate with our proposed changes. We recommend providing the Electoral Commission with powers to: • investigate electoral offences • obtain documents and other evidence • impose fines • impose other remedies for minor breaches of electoral law

This is well overdue. I have been pushing for this for years. I’d go further and also remove the Police as the agency for major electoral breaches and give it to an agency that understands electoral law – maybe Crown Law.

We recommend that the Government consider giving responsibility for running all aspects of local elections to the Electoral Commission

Again I have supported this for many years. Makes total sense, but the recommendation is merely to consider it, not to do it. Which is very tokenistic.

As part of centralising the management of local elections, we recommend that the Government consider encouraging or requiring the same voting system to be used in all local elections.

It is confusing that some elections are FPP and some STV but having them all STV could make things worse unless they have more wards with fewer candidates. People simply won’t take time to rank 25 candidates.

We recommend that the Government introduce legislation to require that, when a nonmayoral vacancy occurs within 12 months after a triennial local body election, the position be filled by the next highest polling candidate (or STV equivalent) at that election.

That seems a good idea. I’d extend it to 18 months.

We recommend that the Government consider one over-arching anti-collusion mechanism, including penalties, to replace those in the Electoral Act.

This is potentially an excellent idea as it would greatly increase the risk for NZ First MPs when they launder donations through their foundation. Current law puts all the risk on the muggins who is the party secretary. Having an anti-collusion mechanism would mean anyone who takes part in a scheme to get around donation law could be held liable.

We recommend that the Government: • make it unlawful for third parties to use funds from a foreign entity for electoral activities • require registered third parties to declare where they get their donations from.

This is outrageous. It means if an organisation express es a view on who to vote for during an election campaign, they may end up having to disclose every single donor to them. I’m no fan of Greenpeace but they should be able to advocate against parties they oppose without disclosing everyu single donor to them.

We recommend that the Government consider requiring all media organisations to have a majority of board members who live in New Zealand.

So if three out of five directors of Stuff are Australian, Stuff has to close down?

We recommend that, as part of its review of media content regulation, the Government consider requiring all media companies to belong to an industry self-regulating body.

It’s not self-regulating if it is made compulsory by the Government. What is the problem being solved here? Every significant media organisation is a member of the BSA and/or the Media Council.

Publishing false statements to influence voters Section 199A of the Electoral Act 1993 (publishing false statements to influence voters) provides that a person is guilty of a corrupt practice if they deliberately publish a false statement with the intention of influencing an elector, on election day or the two days prior. Government members believe that this rule should also apply during advance voting. Government members of the committee recommend extending the offence in section 199A so that it applies from two days before advance voting begins until the close of polling on election day.

This is by far the most stupid and terrible idea, because it would have the Police deciding for three weeks of an election campaign whether or not to charge party leaders, MPs, candidates etc for any statement which someone else claims is false and complains about.

Take an example. Labour falsely claimed on scores of occasions that the last National Government cut health funding. This was clearly false and intended to influence electors. Health funding increased under National in nominal terms, real terms and real per capita terms.

Under Labour’s proposal, Jacinda Ardern would go to jail if she repeated this false claim within 23 days of the election.

The consequences for politicians saying false things should be exposure, not jail.

In fact this law should be scrapped entirely, not expanded from two days to 23 days. It comes from an era when people only read or heard the news once a day and was designed for a situation such as a nationwide pamphlet drop the day before the election which has something totally false in it (Politician X is a convicted criminal). Back then there would be no way to rebut such a claim in time, hence the provision in the law to sanction it.

Today such a pamphlet would be exposed on social media within minutes and have millions aware within a few hours it is false through media websites.

Whether a political claim is true or false should not be a matter for criminal courts. The reality is that many claims are shades of grey, not black or white.

Could you imagine a leaders debate, with such a law in place for the last 23 days. Before the debate was over supporters of each side would have laid a dozen complaints with the Police alleging their opponent had published a false statement and should be prosecuted.

So as I said many terrible idea in this report, but some worthwhile ones also.