election funding: selective blogging

DPF wrote a post about a "dont vote Labour" sign saying how it breaks the Electoral Finance Act. It does. However Idiot Savant at No Right Turn responded that his post was deceitful, because such banners always broke the "long standing" law. But as DPF didn`t reveal this, I/S questioned his integrity.

But what Idiot Savant failed to point out himself was that the law is not "longstanding". The law has changed and because the law has changed, this billboard is only illegal one in every three years, whereas prior to the EFA it was illegal outside election periods as well. Furthermore if that billboard sign had been on a T-shirt, it is would also be illegal whereas prior to the Electoral Finance Act it wasn`t, even without a name and address.

THe Electoral Commission should check the Political Parties websites to see if they have approporate authorising statements. All but one do not.They too would be breaking the law. The Greens only put its one up yesterday. Mind you, lawmakers who then don`t comply with laws they pass - or current law for that matter - are pretty common in this country.

United Future votes against Electoral Finance Bill

Well, its not often a Minister votes agains a key Government bill and keeps his job.

But well done Peter Dunne - sort of. He has voted against the Electoral Finance Bill, which passed 63-57 wiht support from Greens, Anderton and NZ First.Copeland didn`t vote as he was overseas. His speech is here.I have no idea what the real reason is, given that I have been having an e-mail conversation with him over a while regarding this bill, right up to last week and he has supported it to the hilt, and opposing every amendment that would have made the bill better.

Dunne said after listening carefully to the views and feelings of New Zealanders, "we can no longer support" the Electoral Finance Bill. That is crap. If he took that line he would not have supported the anti-smacking bill.

He was not swayed by the public or his constituents - I am one - he was swayed by his political future.He basically admitted that he should naver have supported the bill up to today because it is a "self-serving attack on the freedom of our electoral process". Yet he was happy to defend it until people like me pointed out the ill logic of his stance on his United Future website and by e-mail right up to last week. Had he been genuine he would have withdrawn his support much earlier. As for Judy Turner, she is just an MP who gives Dunne two votes and may as well be a puppet.

Perhaps Dunne decided that if he supported this bill his party vote will be pretty low at the next election - an election which he wants to say "I did not support the Electoral FInance bill because it was undemocratic." Had the NZ Herald not published those two editorials, informing the wider public of this bill, public opinion would not have turned against the bill to the extent that it did, and I`m sure Dunne and his sidekick Judy Turner would have voted for the bill.

What he should have done was voted on principle against the wording of the bill, not the public perception of it. He should have killed the bill at select committee, of which he was a member. I for one will be reminding him of both until the election - and pointing out to him that if it was good enough to use the "court of public opinion " excuse to vote against the EFB, to be consistant, he should have done so for the anti-smacking bill as well.

At least he has more sense than the Greens or Winston Peters.

TV3 and TV1 Polls shows public don't like Labour's arrogance

According to the latest polls, National has enough support to govern alone, with more than half the vote and 70 seats. Helen Clark is no longer the preferred Prime Minister and her party can't even rely on the Greens to govern.

And the Maori Party has the third most support in terms of seats on the House, and in my view the National Party should be taking them more seriously.

One telling factor is the Electoral Finance Bill. Labour and friends who support this bill should be worried. The Greens, United Future and the Progessives are relying on getting an electoral seat to remain in Parliament. On this poll Labour's friend's 65 seats will be reduced to 48 seats.

Lets look at the minor parties individually.

Labour is on 36 percent, and 35 percent on the TV1 poll, its lowest since 1999. The Greens have polled lower than 5 percent three times in a row. If they do get more than 5 percent at the election, they will most certainly lose some MPs.

Three minor parties are really latch-ons to their leaders, who are all ministers.

NZ First is hovering at 2 percent and its support for the Electoral Finance bill should kill them off.

United Future and the Progressives are relying on their leaders to regain their seats to remain in Parliament. Here's hoping their vote falls drastically.

No wonder Winston Peters and Helen Clark are so angry with the NZ Herald. It's not because of journalism, its because it's editorials on the Electoral Finance Bill exposed the truth and appropriate coverage to ordinary New Zelanders - that those inside the beltway were aware of for some time. And this bill could cost Labour the election and NZ First its place in Parliament.

But why is the poll so bad against Labour. Apart from Trevor Mallard's physical assault on Tau Henare, his verbal assault on Erin Leigh, and the Electoral Finance bill, there are also other issues. Ther appears to be a feeling in the electorate that Labour's intolerance of any criticism of the Government and the public service is unwelcome. But in my view that intolerance extends to Dunne and Anderton whose existence in Parliament is due to the constituent vote - and these MPs dont give two hoots about constituents who oppose the Government line. Like Winston Peters, their motivation for being in parliament is the baubles of office, as opposed to representing constituents. All three are as bad as each other.

There are several models of how elected representatives carry our their functions. When you look at the leaders of the elected minor parties in terms of the Electoral
Finance Bill, (save the Maori Party and Act), they dont pass judgement on behalf of electors when making decisions (the trustee model), they are not being guided by constituents (the delegate model) or pursuing preelection manifestos (the mandate model),their leaders are seeking advice outside their constituency and ignoring constituents views.

And when any MP does this, let alone party leaders, they do not deserve to be constituent MP's. Meaning Anderton and Dunne's parties don't deserve to be in Parliament. Yet it looks like NZ First is more likely to lose representation after the election, with the Greens reducing in numbers all because it wants to suck up to Labour for illogical political reasons that have nothing to do with its support base.

Dunne still doesn't know what he's voting for

He has read
He's been advised
He has scanned the EFB
The EFB
Only to be informed
But he still doesn't know what he's voting for
But he still doesn't know what he's voting for

Many people have criticised the Greens and Peter Dunne for their positions on the Electoral Finance Bill.David Farrar has criticised "those great champions of human rights overseas - the Greens, and United Future" for voting against an amendment to allow anonymous advocacy on the Internet.

But UnitedFuture voted against this amendment only because the party caucus has a rule that they do not vote for any amendments - Government or otherwise - which they have not had 24 hours prior notice so that they can consider them - and National, who put up the amendment, did not approach them about any of the amendments. It would be interesting to see if there are any amendments since 2002 that United Future has voted for, but did not have 24 hours notice.

Anyway, this rule was probably the reason UF did not vote for National's amendment to push the start date of the bill to April 1. However what is concerning is that UnitedFuture does not believe that Usenet or YouTube advertising is classed as an electoral advertising and to be doubly sure, Peter Dunne says he is seeking further confirmation from officials.

Regarding third Parties, Dunne has said that the registration process applies only to those third parties who genuinely seek to mount campaigns around the election, not those merely expressing an opinion - like saying, perhaps that Labour has a crazy car policy and its MPs should be told that it is wrong and that we should all e-mail them. Dunne has a disregard for the views of the Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission is of the view that the IMVDA's Crazy Car advertising back would "clearly" be covered. Dunne thinks that criticism of a policy is not caught, but exhortation to vote a certain way is caught -that is, advertising on an issue in a way which may encourage people to vote for or against parties on that issue is now an election advertisement. That is exactly what the Electoral Commission and the Auditor General said the crazy car advertisments did -but Dunne says they don't.

Dunne also believes the bill is designed to ensure advertising is more transparent through the disclosure requirement. My earlier post stated that the secret seven members of the Exclusive Brethren, for example, can run joint ads for a total of $840,000 as the bill will allow for advertisments to be apportioned between third parties. Whats more, under this bill, anyone will be able to donate $1000 every day anonomously should they so choose and nobody will know where a particular third party got their money from because the disclosure requirement doesn't exist as it doesnt kick in.

Now thats hardly transparency throgh the donations requirement - if Dunne understood the bill he would have done an amendment banning repeated anonymous donations.

In other words Dunne did not have a clue why he was voting and has no idea why his officials - whoever they are - are advising him the way they are. If he doesn't get the advice from officials by Tuesday before he casts his vote for the bill, he is voting in ignorance. If he does get advice and it is different, it would be hypocritical to vote for the bill. It will be too late to do a supplementary order paper.

Dunne on the Electoral Finance Bill

Peter Dunne on the United Future website comments on the Electoral Finance Bill.

The premise on which the Bill is based is actually that while everyone or group has an absolute right to express their political views, including the Brethren or any other fringe group, the voting public has a right to know who they are, and that those groups in turn cannot conspire with political parties or candidates to thwart the campaign expenditure

He should consider this. Briefly, If someone is motivated to make 20 $1,000 anonymous donations over time, and the party takes the money, the electoral commission won't even learn about the donations, let alone have them count as part of the $240,000 cap. The Electoral Commission and the public will have no who has donated what.

Also, one can can receive not only up to $30,000 over three years [Clause 22A(1)(b)] in undisclosed donations from a donor, plus they can give $36,000 anonymously [Clause 28C(3)] through the Electoral Commission. This is because the law allows for both undisclosed donations and anonymous donations. So United Future is saying that $66,000 can be donated to a party without the identity being known, while stating that the public has a right to know who they are if they are expressing their political dview point via donations.

Thats called double speak. If Dunne was doing his job on the select comittee he could have suggested a different limit on anonymous donations as wel as stating that a person can not make multiple anonymous donations. Dunne didnt want to do that, perhapos because it would upset Labour, who can het these anonymous donations they desperately need.

And, as I have said before, the Exclusive Brethren's "secret seven" can each register as third parties meaning they can collectively spend $840,000 - although they cant conspire. However they can run joint ads for a total of $840,000 - the EFB in Clause 105A(3) allows for ads to be apportioned between third parties.

in the House

One of my spies advised me today that my name came up in Parliament in the Committee of the Whole stage of the Electoral Finance Bill. Someone from National mentioned and quoted me as I apparently showed up Peter Dunne on the United Future Website discussing the Electoral Finance Bill.

The cunning plan to exempt parliamentary spending

This is the sort of analysis that should be in the daily papers.

This post will be a bit difficult to follow, but it is an important one. It will show how the Government’s actions on this bill are those of naked self interest and to legalise their previously illegal actions.

Labour broke the law in two ways in 2005. They over-spent under the Electoral Act, and illegally used taxpayer money on their election campaign. Changing one law without changing the other doesn’t help them much.

But they made one mistake. Instead of writing the law so it explicitly said that anything approved by the Parliamentary Service could not be considered an election expense (which would help get around the case law from the 1988 Wairarapa Electoral Petition), they just made it implicit. They did not want the public odium of stating their intentions quite so blatantly.

But they then struck a problem. The Electoral Commission said that they did not know what these clauses meant, and the credibility of the law was seriously threatened. So Annette King panicked...

Read the rest here at Farrars Place It's one of his best posts of the year.

Insolent Prick blasts The Standard bloggers to bits over Electoral Finance Bill

This is pretty good from blogger and commenter "Insolent Prick". A lengthy but good and accurate summary worth reading. From "The Standard" - a blog that reflects Labour Party standards. Yeah, I know...

Electoral law is the bedrock of our constitutional framework. Labour should have set up a royal commission, consulted with the public on the policy framework, sent some MPs overseas for a comparison of electoral financing regimes, got the Law Commission to give its input, put together a committee of experts, made Justice Ministry policy advice available for public comment and consultation, consulted with the Human Rights Commission, and then got onto legislative drafting, before presenting the Bill to the house for introduction and followed the select committee process. Then we would have robust legislation that the public could have faith in.

Instead, Labour and New Zealand First refused a royal commission, consulted only with each other, didn’t investigate international regimes, ignored large tracts of Ministry of Justice advice, refused to release that advice to the public, didn’t commission the Law Commission to do a report, didn’t consult with the public on the policy framework, and introduced a Bill to the House without any public consultation, or, for that matter, any public mandate to so dramatically change the electoral system.

Labour refused to consult with other parties, and rammed through a process in select committee that overwhelmingly ignored the sentiments expressed in this Committee. As a consequence, the Select Committee was so bogged down with the policy issues that what has emerged is a flawed, poorly drafted, ambiguous travesty of legislation.

There has never been any opportunity for the public to be involved in the policy framework. That is a disgrace. Labour didn’t allow public input in the policy-formation process, rejected expert advice in select committee, and now Parliament as a whole, led by Labour, has rejected the Electoral Commission’s expert advice.

The EC’s expert advice to the Select Committee on limits for anonymous donations, and spending limits for third parties, and the disclosure regime for third parties, were all rejected by the Select Committee. Annette King’s SOP does not restore the EC’s recommendations. Chris Finlayson moved amendments this evening, to restore the limits as recommended by the Electoral Commission, and the Labour Party, along with the Greens, New Zealand First, and United Future voted down those amendments.

A select committee is demonstrably not part of the policy formation process. The purpose of a select committee is to take draft legislation from the House, hear submissions, and ensure that the policy objectives as represented in the legislation are transmitted into robust law. It is a legislative drafting process.

The Select Committee was so bogged down with the policy issues–because the public didn’t have any input into the policy formation process–that it overlooked its core responsibility of creating robust legislation. That’s why we need 150 amendments from the Minister in a supplementary order paper. Because the Select Committee didn’t do its job.

Yes, it is Helena Catt’s ( from the electoral Commission) job to interpret the law, and recommend for prosecution parties and individuals that she believes are in breach of the law. But it is the job of Parliament to create robust law that can be interpreted. It is frankly a disgrace for Parliament to create what is knowingly an ambiguous law. Saying: “We don’t want to make the hard calls about what this law means: we’ll let the Courts sort it out”, is downright cowardly.

If you are a taxpayer, and you have a tax question, you can call the IRD and ask them about their interpretation of your tax liabilities. You can challenge the IRD’s position in Court, but you’re not likely to win. Parliament takes a lot of care in formulating tax law–which is as complex as it gets in terms of its scope and interpretation–that can be interpreted by the IRD. The IRD doesn’t say: “We don’t understand this bit of tax law. How about you, as a taxpayer, get your own legal advice on it, then we can prosecute you, and we’ll let a judge decide what the law is.”

It’s the same with electoral law. Parliament should create robust electoral law. It is only because the Government has followed such a thoroughly flawed process that we won’t have it.

What was the point in having a select committee process at all, if you’re going to ignore expert advice, and then do what you were always going to do anyway?

The Government rejected the opportunity to open up the electoral finance and expenditure regime for public consultation during the policy formation process. We didn’t have a Royal Commission, or a citizen’s jury. We didn’t have the Law Commission write a report on the issue. We didn’t have the Ministry of Justice policy consultation process. We didn’t have a committee of expert advisers assess international jurisdictions. We didn’t have any attempt by Labour to generate cross-party consensus for its proposals. We didn’t even have a political party seek public mandate on its proposed reforms at the last election.

Instead, we had a Bill whose policy objectives were stitched up in secret between the Labour, New Zealand First, and United Future parties. We had a deeply flawed Bill referred to a Select Committee, which subsequently rejected the views of the overwhelming majority of submitters. The Select Committee rejected recommendations on some fairly core issues by expert advisers. The Government refused to release the advice it received from officials. All of this prompted both the Law Society, and the Human Rights Commission, to call on the Government to reject the Bill in its entirety, and start again. The Law Commission was so outraged with the process that it refused to provide any expert advice to the Select Committee on the Bill.

All of those steps are downright unprecedented within the normal policy-formation process, let alone a process making constitutional change.

The outcome is a Bill that has emerged from the Select Committee that is so flawed that the Electoral Commission says it doesn’t understand what the law means, and can’t do its job of advising the public on some fundamental aspects of electoral law. In response to this shoddy piece of legislation, which should have been robust emerging from Select Committee, is for the Minister of Justice to propose 150 amendments to the Bill in the Committee stage of the House. None of those amendments address the Electoral Commission’s ability to interpret the law.

The Labour Party made much of changing employment law to introduce “good faith bargaining”. When it comes to the rules around electing MPs, Labour has acted in totally bad faith. It has done no bargaining with the public.

The Prime Minister assured the public that the Select Committee would address all of the public’s concerns with the Bill. The Select Committee has reported back, and yet STILL needed 150 amendments just two hours before the Bill was to be voted on by MPs.

After such a shambolic process, do you really have faith that Labour has finally got it right?

For the first time in New Zealand’s history, the Electoral Commission can’t interpret the electoral act for candidates, because it doesn’t understand the law itself. They have to go and consult a lawyer.

That’s like the IRD not being able to advise taxpayers on their tax obligations.

United Future supports Electoral Finance Bill

Althought both Peter Dunne and Judy Turner voted with the Government today on the SOP which will mean that most political advocacy over the Internet must have a name and address tagged to it during election year, Peter Dunne effectively told me that the bill does not inhibit the right to free speech. To Dunne, free speech has to be regulated,and participants outed - particularly over the Internet. Dunne's other issue is the spending limits and everything else to him appears irrelevant. In other words he is voting on certain clauses on the bill - and everything else in the bill, including the bits he doesnt appear to understand is irrelevant to him. He has nothing to say to those people who are not going to spend anywhere near the limit in political advocacy apart from " I want to know who you are."

This, today, on the United Future website from Dunne, who was on the select committee.

The premise on which the Bill is based is actually that while everyone or group has an absolute right to express their political views... the voting public has a right to know who they are

In other words, if I publicly hold a political position in election year, United Future, Labour and the Greens thinks the public has a legal right to know who I am and where I live if I publicly promote my political views pretty much in any way other than my blog or through the media. If this blog was a commercial blog I`d have to advise you all my address as well as my surname - as I would also have to do if I was using a useNet site. In fact, if I was holding a placard in a protest Dunne would also think I should have to put my name and address on that, because the select committee which he was part of recommended that. So I am off to buy some invisible ink for next year.

On the other hand I dont even think Judy Turner - the other United Future MP - has even read the bill, let alone the select committee report and probably doesn`t even know what she is voting for. However I have more respect for Dunne than for Chris Carter - he has been asking his staff to send Annette Kings Dominion Post article on the EFB by return e-mail to anyone who writes to his office regarding the EFB.

Electoral Finance Bill votes

Today we had proof that the Green MPs are hypocritical and unprincipled.Today Parliament considered some of the 150 amendments to the Electoral Finance Bill.

The Greens oppose anonymous donations to political parties and support free speech -like anonymous advocacy.. So when an amendment to permit anonymous advocacy on the Internet under the bill, they voted against it because they believe that anyone who posts a political message - other than on a blog - on the Internet must put their name and address to it each and every time in election year.

Then because the bill actually allows anonymous donations, the Greens, instead of deciding to vote against the bill, put up a Supplementary Order Paper asking for the law to be reviewed in two months. Remember, they are supporting a bill to stop the big money being paid to political parties in election year, and want to review it before most people have even donated - and have the Minister of Justice appoint the panel to review it. Furthermore, they dont even have to report back until after the election.

And as members of the public, we dont have a say in the matter on this law, democratic process or human rights. And as David Farrar says the moral obligation to be a good citizen and not break laws is diminished when you have daft laws like this one.

Or should we use the words of Dear Leader:

.It is important that the Commonwealth does back the principles which it repeatedly says that it stands for; those principles being constitutional law, human rights and democracy

. Except if you are a Labour, Green or United Future MP.

Electoral Finance Bill: Human Rights Commission wants to start again

The Human Rights Commission is not happy with the Electoral Finance Bill. It wants to scrap it and start again - or at least have another round of consultation.

The Government has refused to do both and does not want the public or the Human Rights Commission to have any further say on a rewritten bill, even though it was the Governments's fault that the bill was so badly drafted in the first place. In other words, this country is going to wear the consequence of this Government's incompetence in terms of electoral law.

Thats not good enough.

Justice Minister Annette King said the revised one-year election period was "transparent and fair" because the previous three-month limit often left parties guessing when it would start if the Prime Minister had not announced an election date.

There's a solution to that - have a fixed election date, revert back to the three month election period, and for the rest of the year, the Government can concentrate on running the country instead of winning the election.

We dont want a government that is going to spend a third of its term focusing on an election when we elect a parliament to run the country for all of those three years. What about a six month period?

Incredibly, No Right Turn disagrees and is happy for a cocked up bill to progress through the House because although the Government has not given itself much time,their imcompetence is less important than passing a crap bill on time. He strongly supported the requirement for third parties to disclose their donors and the restrictions on anonymous and laundered donations - but, like the Green Party, has now done a $10,000 U-Turn which he refuses to explain.

He needs to learn that Hagars book The Hollow Men is less important than democracy, and less important than getting our electoral laws right.

BTW the select committee has forwarded executive summaries of the bill to all submitters, as they were asked to "to indicate the extent to which all submissions have been taken into account".

Guess what. There was no indication of the extent to which all submissions were taken into account. How surprising. Liars.

This government does not know how to write bills - the EFB has been through the Justice Ministry, advisors, Cabinet, Select Committee, the Human Rights Commission TWICE, Law Commission, Attorney General (well, on his desk anyway, he didnt really look at it critically), and the bill still has laws that are not intended, are unenforceable, and will be broken if nothing changes - but with no consequences.

Today in the House

John Key and Michael Cullen sparring on the Electoral Finance Bill.