Tag Archive for 'electoral law'

Attack on democracy

Published
by
IrishBill
on September 28, 2008
in election 2008, maori party and national
. 52 Comments

National have quietly released their policy on electoral law and have promised to abolish the Maori seats once treaty claims are finished, repeal the Electoral Finance Act and run a referendum on MMP.

These all represent substantial changes to the way our democracy operates.

I’ll be very interested to see what the Maori Party make of the abolition of seats. I’d also like to know what kind of electoral law they envisage replacing the EFA because I have a bad feeling it won’t involve transparency and the removal of anonymous donations. I sincerely hope our media push for details about the Nat’s plans for electoral law because it’s too important to see it taken back to the days of the shadowy backrooms.

Regarding the plan to run a referendum on MMP, I can only repeat what I said when the Nat’s intentions for MMP first came to light:

I would imagine we’ll hear a lot about how National just support the democratic right to choose an electoral system while their backers run big money campaigns to push first past the post.

Just in case you missed it the first time around here’s a video showing exactly what that meant

Political Funding - Have your say (eventually).

Published
by
lprent
on September 8, 2008
in election funding
. 8 Comments

Lynn PrenticeIn 1993, the then National government reluctantly implemented the MMP system by putting in the Electoral Act 1993. This was an act that had some serious flaws, some of which were fixed in the Electoral Finance Act of 2008.

One of the Electoral Act’s innovations appeared to be designed to make sure that the true sources of funding for political parties were always going to be dodgy because of the non-detailed reporting in anonymous trusts.

New Zealand First used the Spencer Trust in 2005 for funneling anonymous donations to itself, legal bills, electoral refunds, etc. However the major beneficiary has been the National Party who wrote the Act originally. For instance they used the Waitemata Trust to funnel about 2.3 million dollars in anonymous donations to itself for the 2005 campaign. Almost all political parties have used this anonymous trust mechanism at some time or another to shield the sources of donations from the recipients, but more importantly from the public.

Political beneficiaries of these trusts were not meant to know who the donations were from. However this is such a pathetically weak “Chinese Wall” that you’d have to treat this claim with the same high degree of skepticism as for various other failed “Chinese walls” in failed financial institutions. There are so many ways of passing the sources and expectations prior to donation. I suspect that most voters would probably consider this type of ‘protection’ with the same degree of contempt that I do.

The Electoral Finance Act 2008 tightened the rules for anonymous donations. But they are still in my opinion far too lax, inherently undemocratic, and too susceptible to abuse. The voters should know who is funding political parties.

In the ERB negotiations, the Greens pushed for and got a commitment to a “Citizens forum” to look at the electoral system, including the funding options.

After the election this should be of major concern to the politically active. In some ways this is as important as who forms the coalition after the election. It is the first time since the 1986 Royal Commission that you may get to make submissions on the electoral system in a way that isn’t a simple binary vote or done in a heated political atmosphere (although I’d expect that some on the right will attempt to create one).

If you don’t participate, it could be decades before you are able to put significant input into your electoral system.

No Right Turn: Election funding: a citizens’ forum
Annette King: Terms of reference
Russell Norman: Citizens to have say on electoral matters
NBR: National would ditch electoral law panel

Predictably the Nat’s have said that they’d stop the initiative if they win the government benches. Presumably they’d prefer to have their own custom written act back with all of those nice clauses that they put in for their own benefit in 1993. For all of their bleating about the EFA, I’ve never heard the National party or their supporters say what they’d actually replace it with. They criticize is the process and never put up their ideas for consideration. A good example is David Farrars comment on the legal panel.

National’s campaign to muzzle union continues

Published
by
IrishBill
on May 21, 2008
in dpf, election funding and same old national
. 138 Comments

It seems National has succeeded in the first step of its campaign to muzzle the EPMU and the fifty thousand workers it represents. Over at the bog our mate Davey is crowing about the high court win that recognises the union as a legal person for the purposes of the act. This still means that the Electoral Commission has to decide whether the union is sufficiently involved in the affairs of the Labour Party to be precluded from third-party registration or not but it certainly weakens their case.

There is going to be a lot of gloating from the right over this, but let’s be clear. Crown Law advice was that the EPMU was not a person and it’s clear as day that the EFA was never intended to exclude democratic organisations such as the EPMU from campaigning. This is a weak point of the law that has failed under heavy (and expensive) legal attack by National and it needs to be fixed.

National has repeatedly stated that it does not want the EPMU excluded from its democratic right to campaign for the rights of its members but just wanted to test the law. Given the fact that the EPMU has run aggressive and successful campaigns against National in the past, I don’t think that’s true. But if it is then I would say National better put its money where its mouth is and support an amendment to clear this issue up. I’m not holding my breath on that one.

In the meantime we’ll all just have to wait for the Electoral Commission’s decision.

Winner takes all (of us to the cleaners?)

Published
by
IrishBill
on May 18, 2008
in same old national
. 119 Comments

The Sunday Star Times reports National is keen to have a referendum on MMP. As you would expect Peter Shirtcliffe has been involved in lobbying the Nats for this policy. It’s just as AYB predicted.

I’m sure the advertising agencies will be rubbing their hands together in glee.

I would imagine we’ll hear a lot about how National just support the democratic right to choose an electoral system while their backers run big money campaigns to push first past the post. I see DPF is already running this line. Considering Peter Shirtcliffe was one of the funders of the ramshackle PR fiasco that was Davey’s Free Speech Coalition, one could be forgiven for suspecting David of sophism.

Electoral donations reported

Published
by
Steve Pierson
on May 1, 2008
in election 2008, election funding and same old national
. 52 Comments

The Electoral Commission has published the parties’ donation returns for 2007. It is worth noting from the outset that under the electoral law then in force only donations over $10,000 had to be declared and anonymous donations, including the use of anonymising trusts, were legal.

Labour has the largest return, at $1,030,446.39. But $700,000 was payments from MPs to the Party as part of the ‘big whip around’ to cover the $800,000 that the Auditor-General found Labour had overspent at the 2005 election. Removing that sum, Labour brought in $200,000 in declared donations.

National brought in $704,100.00. Of that, $553,100 was given by anonymous donors or came through trusts designed to hide the identities of the donors.  It is not good enough that in a democracy a major party can take nearly all of it’s donations from secret sources, especially after the beat up they made over the Owen Glenn donations. National (and Labour) should come forward and reveal their secret donors. They know who they are.

Of course, National won’t do that. Fortunately, we now have a law that prevents people secretly spending huge sums in an effort to influence elections. Under the Electoral Finance Act, all parties are forced to reveal the sources of their big donations. And New Zealand’s democracy is stronger for it.

PS. Radio NZ said this morning they had asked Mike Williams to come on to discuss the donations. He is wisely keeping out of the media for now but how come no-one ever interviews National’s President, Judy Kirk? Surely, she’s the one hiding the real secrets. 

An emerging threat to MMP?

Published
by
all_your_base
on January 24, 2008
in same old national
. 96 Comments

After Brash and the extreme right were exposed in The Hollow Men the Nats changed their leader hoping for a fresh start.

What’s becoming apparent is that National’s shady backers haven’t changed. The policy and the cash are coming from the same people they always have - people like Peter Shirtcliffe who’s evidently now helping to finance National Party activists David Farrar and Cameron Slater in their campaign against the Electoral Finance Act.

Shirtcliffe’s been around a while. In 1993 he launched the “Campaign for Better Government” - a right-wing business lobby group opposing the introduction of MMP.

Rod Donald had this to say about Shirtcliffe and his aggressive campaign:

On ANZAC day 1993 a full page advertisement appeared in the major Sunday paper attacking MMP. Inserted by Peter Shirtcliffe, chairman of Telecom, New Zealand’s largest company, it marked the beginning of a David and Goliath battle that went to the wire… he announced the formation of his Campaign for Better Government (CBG), the opening of an office and the appointment of paid staff.

CBG’s campaign strategy eclipsed the [Electoral Reform Coalition's]. They conducted market research, used direct mail and paid for radio talkback programmes. A confidential report from their market research company somehow made it on to the front page of a weekly business paper. It was a blueprint for an anti-MMP advertising campaign targeting “the least educated and most gullible” sectors of the electorate by providing “easily digestible, alarming material” warning electors of the consequences of MMP [my emphasis].

In the clip below you can see the kind of material that Shirtcliffe and his mates favoured - complete with crying babies, grainy black and white and staticy sound effects.

With Shirtcliffe back in on the act and the Nats dreaming of governing alone you have to wonder how long it’ll be before the next assault on MMP.

Ask not what your country can do for you, DPF…

Published
by
IrishBill
on November 14, 2007
in dpf and election funding
. 63 Comments

davey220.jpg Interesting to see National Party blogger David Farrar is inciting his readers to start a political party to bypass/oppose the Electoral Finance Bill. Even more interesting is the fact that his rabid hoard are already calling for him to be its leader.

Here at The Standard we couldn’t agree more - if anyone has the political nous and experience to run such a thing it’s DPF. After all he is one of the founders of Kill the Bill, is probably the most vocal pundit on the issue and, as Tane points out, he’s probably able to get the 500 people he needs to register a party out of his KB readers alone.

So we’re asking you David, if you’re reading this, to put your money where your mouth is (so to speak) and to start this political party you speak of. The only real question is what to call it. I’m sure some of the folk in our comments section can kick-start that brainstorming session…

And if you need a bit more of a head-start here’s the link for registering.

Fairer electoral funding

Published
by
all_your_base
on August 25, 2007
in election funding
. 0 Comments

Today in the Dom: Tracy Watkins gets National Party blogger David Farrar to coauthor share his views in an article on the Electoral Finance Bill.

The Nats are campaigning hard against changes to the Act. You would too if you had as much to lose. The loopholes in it nearly allowed them to buy the last election, helped in part by covert third party campaigns and huge anonymous trusts.

Thanks to The Hollow Men it’s no longer a secret that the National Party were the main beneficiaries of campaigns like those run by the Exclusive Brethren and the Fair Tax group seeking tax relief for the racing industry. The intention of the Bill is to insulate our democracy from manipulation by these kinds of groups.

You’ll probably hear Bill English complaining that the $60,000 spending limit for third parties is too small. He would say that wouldn’t he. The Brethren were the only group to spend more than that in the 2005 campaign.

One law for the National Party

Published
by
John A
on August 23, 2007
in john key
. 0 Comments

porkie.jpgJohn can’t seem to get his story straight (again). Since he claims to support the concept of ‘one law for all’ let’s start with that.

Under the Electoral Act you can reside in one place only. Under the Companies Act you cannot make a statement that is knowingly false or misleading.

In October 2002 Key told the chief electoral officer he was living in Helensville. In March and April 2003 he told the companies office that he, as a director of Earl of Auckland Ltd and Haunui Dairy Ltd, resided in Remuera.

If, for the purposes of the Electoral Act he was in residing (as stated) in Helensville, then he could not be residing at the Remuera address he had listed with the Companies Office. If he was residing in Remuera then he was living in more than one place putting him in conflict with the Electoral Act.

So he’s either mislead the chief electoral officer (as he told the companies office again in 2003 and 2004 that he was living in Remuera) or he’s given the companies office fraudulent information. These aren’t trivial offences. A false statement against the Companies Act has a term of imprisonment of up to 5 years or a fine not exceeding $200,000. Labour’s David Parker stood down for a much more minor offense against this Act after allegations made in Investigate magazine.

In typically dismissive style National Party activist David Farrar plays down the offending on his Kiwiblog. He defends Key by claiming, “he actually went and got a written legal opinion from the Clerk of the House which advised how he could register a different electoral address to a company’s address.”

But that is absolutely not the point. Key is now saying he never lived at the house in Helensville where he and his wife were registered for three years. That is an offence against the Electoral Act, which says that a person can have only one address, lives at the place where he or she chooses to make their residence for family or personal reasons, and the matter is determined by the facts of the case.

The purpose of these provisions in the the law is to make sure that people cannot vote more than once, and cannot choose where to exercise their electoral vote for political purposes as John Key clearly did in 2002. He can’t argue that it was an oversight as he and his wife remained on the Helensville roll through 2003 and 2004. In both those years his electorate secretary was also registered at the same address - but nobody is suggesting a menage a trois!

What would be interesting to know is what question did John Key ask the Clerk of the House to rule on, and what factual assumptions did the Clerk make in his ruling? It would be highly surprising if he had indeed cleared Key of lawful enrolment at an address where he did not live. If John Key were to release the whole of the letter it may help clear that point up.

Key still has questions to answer - Why does he keep changing his story? Bill English’s defense is “who cares?” It seems as though when it comes to the Electoral law the National Party position is that it doesn’t apply to them.

It seems that Key and English are following in Don Brash’s footsteps after the Exclusive Brethren rort of 2005.