Herald on Electoral Finance Bill
August 11th, 2007 at 11:12 am by David FarrarI had been concerned at the lack of coverage in the NZ Herald on the Electoral Finance Bill. Aucklanders I know, including a former party president, had told me they would have had no idea of what was in the Bill and how bad it was, if they hadn’t heard me on NewstalkZB discussing it with Larry Williams.
Anyway today the Herald comes to the party big time with no less than three articles on it.
First of all this article by Audrey Young which labels it an “electoral bill no one wants”. Yes the bill is so appallingly bad that even the Government has stopped trying to defend it. Not that they don’t want it passed, they just realise there would be a public revolution if it got passed unchanged.
The Herald uses my phrase (well I’ve not seen it elsewhere) of “regulated criticism” and that is exactly what it is. A bill which defines how one can criticise the Government, and by how much.
They quote Forest & Bird who say having the restrictions stretch out for a whole year is “absolutely unreasonable”. The Sensible Sentencing Trust label it “a corrupt piece of legislation”.
Forest & Bird is also upset that if anyone gives them over $500 anonymously, they have to hand it over to the Government. Yes Dr Cullen will confiscate your donations.
Even Jeanette Fitzsimons concedes “that while she did not agree with Roger Dickie of the Kyoto Forestry Association on the allocation of forest Kyoto credits, I will stand up for their right to put that view publicly.”
I even get a mention as having “lampooned in Stalinist style by David Farrar on Kiwiblog”. This is technically incorrect as I was lampooning it in Maoist style, but the differences aren’t great 
In a second article Audrey Young reports that National is alerting about 500 interest groups to make submission on the bills. Good. I’m half tempted to try and form a “Free Speech Coalition” of interested groups to co-ordinate opposition to these provisions.
And finally John Armstrong lets loose:
Wake up to what Labour is doing with its shabby, self-serving Electoral Finance Bill. Or let it be on your conscience that you stood back and watched your right to free speech being flushed down the drain.
While not being quite that direct, National’s Bill English has effectively thrown down that challenge to trade unions, left-of-centre lobby groups, and politicians and individuals of the same ideological ilk.
I have absolutely no doubt that if this bill was passed into law, and National still won the next election, then the Electoral Finance Act would become the most hated and despised law amongst the left. The advantages it gives to an incumbent Government is massive. A National Government could arrange for all state sector pay rounds to be in election year. This would muzzle the unions from doing a public campaign is support of their claims.
If National was totally unprincipled and very cunning it would let this bill pass, betting on the probability their poll lead is great enough that even the taxpayer funded Govt advertising campaigns next year won’t save the Govt. And then in Govt this bill would be their best protection, and Labour and the Greens having forced it through wouldn’t be able to complaining about it.
Armstrong covers this in his article also, that National in 2011 could be hugely advantaged by this bill.Luckily for us all National is putting principle first:
English says standing back is not an option. The legislation is so draconian, so pernicious, so unsatisfactory and so unworkable, National is morally obliged to fight it, even though the bill’s failure to ban anonymous donations is very much to National’s advantage.
One has to give kudos to the Herald for covering this issue, because it is against their own self-interest also. By shutting down almost all paid advocacy in election year, the media are made incredibly more powerful. If lobby groups and parties can’t spend much money on promoting their issues, then editorial discretion as to what gets covered becomes massively more powerful.
This aspect gets noticed by Michelle Boag, who on her blog labels the bill as great news for the PR or public relations industry. Because if one can’t pay to advertise your view, you then need PR people to try and influence editorial coverage.
So in summary the bill is great for the incumbent Government, the media and the PR industry and bad for everyone else!
No tag for this post.
August 11th, 2007 at 11:22 am
The editors may like it, but the advertising managers will be tearing their hair out. This will greatly reduce their income from advertising.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 11:43 am
“This will greatly reduce their income from advertising.”
Vote:Unless that income reduction is offset by the increased governmental “communications” spend.
G
August 11th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Can anyone in the MSM pin down Sir Geoff Palmer for an interview and ask what he thinks of this Bill?
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Can anyone in the MSM pin down Sir Geoff Palmer for an interview and ask what he thinks of this Bill?
Well, Chen Palmer is blatantly modelled on (to quote its own website) “the North American model of the ‘Washington law firm’”. So I guess where the PR flacks go, Wellington’s answer to the K Street lobbyist law shop won’t be far behind.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
This would muzzle the unions from doing a public campaign is support of their claims.
My understanding is that incorporated bodies are exempt from many of the restrictions in the bill, meaning expenditure on promoting views within those bodies are exempt.
Who are the largest incorporated bodies in NZ? Unions. And they can spend all the money they like promoting a certain viewpoint to their membership.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
“So in summary the bill is great for the incumbent Government, the media and the PR industry and bad for everyone else!”
Or, to put it another way, great for those NZers who cheer for big powerful government and who constantly cheer for that government to become even bigger and more powerful- and its also great for those totalitarian leftists who want to slowly but surely take away our choices, our freedom of political expression and make this country a one party socialist state.
I spit on them all- The mainstream media, those traitorous scum who should be looking after our interests, who should be speaking out against big powerful government, but who have in their pinko induced haze, long ago forgotten their primary role and almost completely sold out to the totalitarian left.
-The “progressive” academics, who pollute our educational institutions with Marxist ideology and Stalinist regulations relating to speech and thought.
-The Marxists and socialists from Labour and National who sit in the majority in our house of parliament, and daily put our liberty our life and our property in danger while they beaver away at expanding their powers and their ability to control and interfere in every aspect of our lives.
When are NZers going to wake up to the left? They’re liars. They are manipulators. They want nothing other than total and unchallengeable power.
As those who profess to be the guardians of democracy and freedom betray NZ day after day after day, the need for real revolution in this country grows greater. When will NZers say, enough is enough? Will that day ever come, or will we in the end, (and that end can’t be too far away) meekly plunge into the abyss like mentally dysfunctional lemmings? The lemmings that WE HAVE ALLOWED THE LEFT TO MAKE OF US.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Redbaiter: I disagree with your statement that: “When are NZers going to wake up to the left? They’re liars. They are manipulators”
It’s a question of New Zealanders waking up to all politicians. They are all tarred with the same brush.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Well reported article on Electoral [Mugabe] Finance Bill from NZH
I thought this bill was to prevent general third party advertising but as stated in NZH and by Cullen in Question time on Thursday the primary aim of this bill is to prevent those Brethren businessmen repeating their advertising again.
Two questions that are not clear.- { perhaps DPF and others could help clarify.}
1. Did the Exclusive Brethren actually break the law and use false addresses as Bill English has also stated?
Vote:{I thought that the Police actually admitted that all the addresses were found to be Bona fide.}
2. Does the existing law require that you state publicly your religion or religious persuasions when advertising during elections?
{There doesn’t seem to be a clause that I can find in the new bill stating that yet.}
August 11th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
The massive advantage this bill gives to incumbancy means that it will ultimately be a trojan horse against the Labour Party. It is an example of the old curse on constitutional change: that it bites the hand of the people promoting it. It is a negotiation, with the Labour Party setting the terms of the debate on how much money that can be spent and over what time period. But it seems Bill English is cleverly driving a wedge through that saying the National Party might vote in favour of this Bill because it will use it against the Labour Party with a vengance.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
“1. Did the Exclusive Brethren actually break the law and use false addresses as Bill English has also stated?”
No they did not. This is a lie, a propaganda lie, the kind of lie the left love, a cowardly smear, a false allegation, the basis for a conviction in the left’s Stalinist kangaroo courts, and the usual penalty, expulsion to the gulags.
The whole basis for this assault on our freedom is the lie that the Brethren did something wrong or illegal. They didn’t. Their “crime” was to hurt the left the way the left can always be hurt and that is by SPEAKING THE TRUTH.
Because the Brethren dared to say what our gutless media is too cowed and to partisan to say, NZ is now facing this Chavez/ Mugabe style legislation.
Nothing the vampires of the left hate more than the wooden stake of truth. This bill is a cynical attempt to shield Helen Klark and her acolytes from candid criticism of the left’s ideology and objectives.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
“Bill English is cleverly driving a wedge through that saying the National Party might vote in favour of this Bill because it will use it against the Labour Party with a vengance.”
Bill English is busy once again showing how utterly bereft of principle and strategy the National Party is.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I tend to agree with you redbaiter as political headless chickens are everywhere !
Whats the point of voting to fill the mad hen house they call the beehive ?
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Yes, Frank’s right. We need to wake up to all politicians. The amount of power and control that they have at their disposal is ridiculous and an insult to those of us that actually make our money the honest way – by hard work.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
“Yes, Frank’s right.”
Frank is not right. Helen Klark continues to attack the rights of the individual and further the cause of big government leftism. Rod Hide (for example) stands for the individual and constantly attacks big government. How can there not be any difference between these two politicians?
Wild and inaccurate generalisations such as those made by Frank merely provide leftists with the camouflage they need to continue their assault on our freedoms and choices and property.
While Frank and others continue to think in such muddled terms, and unwittingly provide leftists with the cover they need to progress their totalitarian objectives, and continue to vote for big government socialism without (apparently) recognising the beast, things will continue to get worse in New Zealand.
It is the NZ publics failure to differentiate between politicians, and their willingness to be led by the nose by a self serving cynical and partisan mainstream media, that has led to this situation. Use your head Frank. There are differences.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
I agree Redbaiter, and with a touch of caution one does meet a cross section of politicians from time to time-ahem-ahem!!
Alas – like many I know our loyalties are changing.
but referring back to old Calc,
Your Question 1, I think the Nats [via the OIA when pursing pledgegate] had established that the Police had found all addresses were lawful- but the error occurred from a sloppy journalist and like so many other cases it was never properly investigated by the MSM and the story stuck and remains to this day.
Your Question 2.That’s the stupid thing about all the attacks on the –admittedly odd- Brethren campaign. They all had authorizing names as the law directs. But in their hysteria Labour implied the religion of the campaigners should have been disclosed. At least they didn’t try and include that in the EFA.
Suggest also that the name be changed from Electoral [Mugabe] Finance Act to Electoral [ Anti-Brerthren] Finance Act.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Redbaiter: There is no difference between Helen Clark, Rodney Hide, John Key the rest of the Party Political Leaders and other members of Parliament and Media. They are all aware that The Hon Justice Goddard Police Complaints Authority closed the file on “Allegations that the Police Commissioner and other members in his Office Allegedly perverted and prevented the Course of Justice.”
Did The Hon Justice Goddard Police Complaints Authority make this publicly known? NO. So why not? Was it a matter of Public Interest? If it was, why did she not publish her?
If it wasn’t in the Public Interest how does she justify that conclusion?
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Castifiore asks: “Did the Exclusive Brethren actually break the law and use false addresses as Bill English has also stated?”
According to the police files, they used a business rather than residential address on some of their brochures. This is probably a breach of the law – albeit a minor one – but we will never know because the police decided not to take the matter to court. The police could not take the EB to court on this minor matter, of course, because they had decided not to take Heather Simpson to court on a more serious matter.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Civil Servant: Get your facts straight. The Nats weren’t pursuing pledge gate. Stephen Joyce raised the question of the Pledge Card with the Chief Electoral Officer before the election was held and left him to pursue the complaint.
His complaint was not investigated until 5 months later when Police in their investigation perverted and defeated the course of justice by burying the Complaint 10 February 2006, of allegations of Misappropriation of Helen’s leaders funds, to pay for a pledge card etc. A whole story of corruption that is in the possession of every member of Parliament.
So where does corruption begin and end? You be the Judge.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
“This is probably a breach of the law”
Why is it “probable”? Where is your justification for this assertion? There is no substance to the charges against the Brethren, and such unverified assertions as you (Anon) have made are proof of this. The case against the Brethren is a typical leftist assault on truth, incorporating lies, cowardly smears, false charges and propaganda in order to discredit a political opponent and and silence viewpoints that challenge socialism.
PS: Frank, if you don’t want to use this thread to discuss Helen Chavez Klark’s attack on freedom of expression in NZ, then fuck off.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Redbaiter: Surely exposing that Helen Clark has the Commissioner of Police in her pocket, shows the greatest successful attack made on New Zealander’s, in that Freedom of Expression is expressly shut down as we have a Police State?
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Helen has cops Howard, Sandra and Rob boy etc. etc. all on a bit of string, as well as crown law and Ms Goddard & Mr Strettell ?
Dance the corrupt waltz for your Queen Hellgrad bent cops !!
How could New Zealand become so corrupt ?
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I’m half tempted to try and form a “Free Speech Coalition” of interested groups to co-ordinate opposition to these provisions.
If a shadowy conservative group could leak a “discussion paper” detailing how the provisions of the bill could best be used in suppressing oppostion lobbyists in 2011. Perhaps providing a helpful list of areas of interest – Greenpeace, NDU, EPMU, CTU – worthy of more detailled study. This might be a motivation for more groups to join the Coalition.
Just kiddingly, of course.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Frank, its easy to see why you are having difficulty getting any politician to show any sympathy for your cause. When you insist on discussing your personal legal issue every time you turn up here, regardless of the topic of the thread, you portray yourself as an ignorant, ill mannered and stupidly stubborn personality. On the basis of your alienating behaviour on here, I wouldn’t want to help you, and if that’s what you’re really like, I can well understand why nobody else might want to either.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Redbaiter: Are you in denial of the New Zealand Bill of Rights, with its attendant main threads for the rights of the individual to pursue justice and the right of the freedom of speech to uphold these rights?
or
Are you like Police Commissioner Howard Broad to whom I have suggested that he and his staff take a course in English comprehension?
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Redbaiter – that is in the police files that DPF went through last year.
The law says you have to give your address. This probably means your home address because most reasonable people would think that is your “address” rather than your business address (although, as I say, it hasn’t been tested by the courts). The Breathren gave a business address. The police thought this was probably a breach of the law but did not proceed with a prosecution because this would not be “in the public interest”.
The police had to reach this conclusion for political reasons because they wanted to maintain that it was not “in the public interest” to prosecute Simpson, Helen Clark’s Chief of Staff. Obviously it would have been ludicrous to say it was “in the public interest” to prosecute the Brethren for a debateable and, in any case, minor breach, but then say it was not “in the public interest” to prosecute Simpson for a very, very serious and clear breach of the law.
You go on to say: “The case against the Brethren is a typical leftist assault on truth, incorporating lies, cowardly smears, false charges and propaganda in order to discredit a political opponent and and silence viewpoints that challenge socialism.” I think that is largely true in terms of the political attack on them and now the EFB. They get attacked because they are not socialists. If the Quakers had run a similar campaign against National I doubt Clark would have attacked them.
But there probably was a technical breach of the law by the Brethren (in the parking-ticket sense, not rape-and-murder sense as Clark tries to make out) and you don’t add much by denying this in such strong terms. What should have happened is that the police should have charged all those who they believed broke the law and seen what the courts decided.
I suspect Simpson could have been sent to jail, or at least fined heavily, and the Brethren discharged by the judge with a telling off, or perhaps a small fine. That, of course, is exactly why the prosecutions did not proceed.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Frank you can wipe your’e arse on the Bill of Right Act, as the labour government break it every day !
It makes good toilet paper .
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
dad4justice – the fact that the govt breaks the BORA everyday is not an argument to emulate them. the next govt must be better than the klark regime
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
“Redbaiter: Are you in denial”
Frank, what I am aware of is that this is David Farrar’s blog, and that you are a selfish and ignorant person who shows no regard for net ettiqette. Fuck off, and if all you can write about is your own legal issue rather than the topic of any thread, I suggest you start your own blog. You will generate no sympathy for your cause with this type of ill mannered beahviour, only hostilty.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Anon; Thanks for a succinct summary. If I recall rightly police had a prima facie case against Helen Simpson. It has never been ascertained who ordered the Pledge Card in the first case and whether Police ever investigated this. I tried Hon Speaker for this information but she declined in that the Official Information Act doesn’t apply to Parliamentary Services.
Vote:Helen 2 directed Parliamentary Services to pay up
August 11th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
I agree abc, and would like to add, just imagine a how beneficial to its people a government would be if it didn’t have to spend 99.9% of its time manipulating systems, in a state of deluded deception, controlling the gutless media, creating rort after rort and inventing hare brained schemes so they can survive another election?
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Anon. Thank you for your cordial response, and I understand what you are saying in respect of the need for the Police to prosecute in both cases if they decided to proceed with the one. I repeat tho, that I have yet to see anything written anywhere that firmly backs up the (meaningless) claim that giving one address rather than another address is “probably a breach of the law”. (and I have looked for this.)
The real issue is the left’s manufactured claim that the Brethren gave a “false address”. They did not, and the only reason this propaganda lie has been broadcast is because Helen Klark and her gangsters want to “get” the Brethren for daring to speak of what in this country is considered unspeakable- the deceit and lies of the Labour party and its true objectives.
Anybody who really opposes the left knows what hate and viciousness they are capable of. Don Brash didn’t know, but he does now. John Key doesn’t know, but is finding out fast. The left have to employ such methods, and formulate legislation such as we are discussing, because they know they cannot win on the field of logic and facts and ideas. They can only win if ideas that challenge their own (really challenge them) are suppressed.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Redbaiter: I see you have appointed yourself chief sensor of Kiwiblog. I fail to see any endorsement from David Farrar. I have always admired the impartiality of David Farrar in his comments and in allowing contentious comments. He is thoroughly competent to police his own website and I for one, will not offend the hospitality, which I value, which he extends to contributors to his columns.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
“Redbaiter: I see you have appointed yourself chief sensor of Kiwiblog.”
..and I see you are even more stupid than I originally judged you. I am trying to make you aware that your constant need to divert the topic of a thread to your own personal legal matters is a major breach of net ettiquette. I am trying to make you aware that you will not generate any sympathy for your cause by employing such devices. Once again, you make it clear that the reason nobody wants to help you with your case is that you are too stupid to deal with, (as shown by your failure here to realise that I am actually giving you good advice.)
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Redbaiter: Please provide me with the rules of “net ettiquette”.
Vote:August 11th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
With reference to Anon & Redbaiter – the relevant Act is Electoral Act 1993 Section 221A Electoral Advertisements. This section was inserted by Section 82 of Electoral Ammendment Act (No2) 1995.
Vote:Clause 1 states: “Subject to subsection (2), no person shall publish or cause to be published in any newspaper, periodical, poster or handbill, or broadcast or cause to be broadcast over any radio or television station, any advertisement relating to an election unless the advertisement contains a statement setting out the true name of the person for whom or at whose direction it is published and the address of that persons place of residence or business”.
It seems to me that it is quite legal to have business or residential.
August 11th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
“…assault on truth, incorporating lies, cowardly smears, false charges and propaganda in order to discredit a political opponent and and silence viewpoints.”
That about sums up the propaganda spewed out by those Bible Bashing, bigots in the Exclusive Brethren against the Greens. Ironic.
Vote:August 12th, 2007 at 8:20 am
It wasn’t a business address the EB used, it was the address of a vacant property they owned. So it was neither a business nor residential address.
Vote:August 12th, 2007 at 8:27 am
I find it rather ironic that the utopian green political party is tolerated by common sense New Zealanders, as they are a bunch of hen -pecked wasted space Clark sychophants .These pussified, stoned up eunuchs are social engineering cowards and parasitic deluded fools dwelling in socialist / communist smugness. They have spun a Clark spider cocoon of self righteousness and protection , however in reality they’re traitor’s and dangerous as they spawn the breakdown of the family and have a total disregard for our vulnerable children.
Vote:August 23rd, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Surely we must recognise that the problem the bill seeks to tackle is real enough, it is true however that the preposed legislation is flawed. Canada had much the same problem in their last federal election, I believe that their legislation to solve it is fair and will prove to be practicable. Canada outlaws anonymous donations, to ensure that everybody can see if a politician or party is in the pocket of a company, individual or pressure group. By limiting organisational donations to $ ( Canadian )5000 in any financial year they dramatically reduce the chance of undue influence.
Vote: