Herald on EFB

The Herald editorial is on the Electoral Finance Bill again.  I won’t quote most of it, but teh conclusion is important:

In essence, the Appropriations Bill provides political incumbents with parliamentary money for their campaigning, while the Electoral Finance Bill prevents the public using its own money. In sum, this double-whammy represents an assault on this country’s democratic wellbeing.

Indeed it is vital to look at the bills together.  They were designed to complement each other.

This is the time politicians should heed the torrent of public disapproval, scrap this bill and refer the subject to a nonpartisan body where constitutional rule-making belongs.

This is what the Government should have done after the last election.  But they rejected openness and transparency for months and months of secret negotiations with Winston and the Greens.

The tragedy of how the Government has managed this process is that it has prevented people from getting together in good faith to debate and have input into the policy principles which any law should be based on.