They should be grateful not whinging

The Spinoff reports:

Five minor parties have joined forces to challenge the big two parties – and the Electoral Commission – about their low allocation of public funding for election broadcasts. Alex Braae reports.

A coalition of minor parties has emerged to challenge the allocation of public funding for election broadcasts, the majority of which has been locked up by Labour and National.

Out of just over $4 million, the two party duopoly has claimed $2.5 million, leaving the rest to be fought over by the rest of the field.

Social Credit, the Māori Party, New Conservative, the Outdoors Party, and the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party have found perhaps the one issue all of them agree on – that small parties are not treated fairly in the allocation. They want an urgent law changed passed so that all parties who stood seven or more candidates at the last election get an equal share of the broadcasting allocation.

They should be grateful, not greedy. The idea that a party which got 806 votes should get the same broadcasting allocation as a party that got 1.15 million votes is nuts.

In fact the five whinging parties all did very well out of the allocation, if you measure it against the votes they got in 2017.

Social Credit is getting a massive $65 for every vote they received, compared to under $2 per vote for the four larger parties.

Of course the simplest way to make it even fairer is to abolish the allocations. Let parties raise their own money.