Whether the EPMU is involved in the administration of the affairs of the Labour Party is only relevant if they continue to pursue their application. The way Andrew Little spoke on RNZ it would seem the even the EPMU think that they are unlikely to achieve registration because of their affiliation status.

This makes any challenge of the EPMU sponsored third party organisation even harder, since to oppose that application for third party status one would have to establish an agency relationship (or some sort of sham or fraud that warrants lifting the incorporated status) between the RTP and the affiliated union and then the Labour Party or between the RTP and the RPP directly. This won’t be easy.

Shouldn’t be that hard, the act does require that each third party registers its sources of funding.

The important question now is how involved in admin of Labour is the EPMU.

Dear Police Commissioner Howard Broad

Thank you for your response 19 May 2008 to my letter dated 12 May 2008.

You dishonestly quote from this letter thus: “I refer you to your letter to the Commissioner of Police dated 12 May 2008 in which you claim police are not empowered to determine legal issues”.

My whole sentence is: “You as Commissioner of Police are not empowered to determine legal issues including how particular statutory provisions should be interpreted”. This was followed by: “This is the function of the Courts”.

There is no comma after “legal issues” in my letter. It was a complete sentence and you should have included: “including how particular statutory provisions should be interpreted”. To indicate that you had uplifted only portion of the sentence you should have indicated the omission by…..Your omission in this instance is misleading, and in my book it is called “fudging the answer”.

You also go on to state: “Police do not have a statutory duty to prosecute those members of Parliament who supported this Bill.”

You used the Bill of Rights Act 1688 section 1 to dismiss my first allegation, and when challenged on this issue, you introduce a misquotation from my renewed allegation to dismiss it?

Please show me where you do not have a statutory duty to prosecute under Bribery and Corruption “those Members of Parliament who supported the Electoral Finance Bill through the House and have done so in an endeavour to advantage themselves over other parties and the voter. In so doing, they are in breach of the Crimes Act 1961, under those sections that are applicable to those in the Service of the Crown”.

In my view you have a statutory duty to investigate my allegations and leave it to the Courts to determine a verdict.

My view of the law is that there are sections of the Crimes Act 1961 that apply to all”Servants of the Crown” of which you are one.

That applies to the body itself be it natural or legal (or artificial as termed by the judgment). If legal, it does not extend to the membership, or shareholders. One of the effects/benefits of incorporation is that the body is a legal person in its own right as distinct from any membership.

Thus it would be a simple question of fact: is the “Fair Wages Campaign 2008 Inc” as set up by EPMU members involved in the administration of the affairs of the Labour Party… and the answer is almost certainly no. The only situation where this might not be the case is if the incorporated body is an agent of the party (under the law of agency) or a sham.

If the EPMU withdraw their application for registered third party status then it’s still an arguable question as to whether they themselves are involved in the administration of the affairs of the Labour Party. This makes any challenge of the EPMU sponsored third party organisation even harder, since to oppose that application for third party status one would have to establish an agency relationship (or some sort of sham or fraud that warrants lifting the incorporated status) between the RTP and the affiliated union and then the Labour Party or between the RTP and the RPP directly. This won’t be easy.

I think it unlikely that many natural persons who are party members will seek registered third party status as one does not want to even get into the issues surrounding involvement in the administration of the affairs of the Party.

“Of course. Party members can also form incorporated societies to seek and gain registered third party status – this is probably likely given that National and Labour are already hitting the NZ$2.4 million spending cap.”

Except those “involved in the administration of the affairs of a party”

EFA sect 13(f)i

Still the tired old lies. And not a whisper of a ghost of a mention for the $800,000 worth of dishonest, secretive and stolen campaigning. You could save us all a lot of time if everytime you posted you simply copied and pasted:

“Labour good-National bad”

We wouldn’t have to skim your drivel and point out the glaring holes in your arguments.

Philip John: Now this is surely good “gamesmanship”, and a strategically astute move by National. But it also eliminates any pretence that National has to claiming a moral high ground on “free-speech” issues. In fact it renders their whole anti-EFB/A campaign a fraud. It’s always been about down and dirty politics, not principle.

Out of curiousity – put yourself into the shoes of the National Party. They are facing a Labour party that has stolen $800,000 of public funds for electioneering. Then introduced retrospective legislation to legalize this. And then gave us the EFA. And then became the first party to break it. Several times. And continued to try and use public funds for electioneering.

What would you do, as the opposition? Would you sit back and sell free speech to the ones who are doing their best to destroy it?

Or would you do everything in your power to defeat the corrupted Labour Party and Greens and try to bring in a new NZ government that would do away with this corruption and take a proper, bi-partisan principled approach to restructuring our electoral laws?

It did occur to me in one of your conclusions: “It all went so terribly wrong! The plan was to design a law to advantage Labour, and embarrass National”, that the words, “and disadvantage” could have been added. The matter then becomes a criminal offence under the Crimes Act”.

A very interesting angle on this aspect has appeared, but it it will take me a little while to organise it into a presentable thread.

Bet they’d be well happy with that. aye Brendan!

Probably about the same as they would feel about paying the salaries of union staffers who spend their days blogging (if only they knew).

I’m confused.

There’s really very little to add is there, not only is little phillipjohn completely busted as the partisan hack he always has been, but he once again demonstrates why he shouldn’t post while drunk.

At least this time we were spared the lovesongs and protestations of desire for DPF. All we got was the incoherent splutter and the weird spelling – I guess the student allowance is running a bit short at the moment, so the cask is having to be rationed?

I do sometimes wonder if he really believes the stuff he gabbles on about, i am half convinced that he is a murray mccully black ops campaign to convince ordinary readers that labour supporters are ideologically constipated lunatics.

Oh, the irony! The National Party wouldn’t have had those ‘thousands of dollars’ had it not been for the EFA.

How’s Benson? Have you and he been exchanging any more pics?

“Our position on the Electoral Finance Bill is clear. When we have economic inequalities in our society that allow the very wealthy to spend large amounts of money to influence an election then it is entirely justified and appropriate for Parliament to pass a law to mitigate that imbalance.

“Subject to refinements, we strongly support this legislation being passed.”

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0709/S00377.htm

I’m guessing one of the refinements they forgot to ask for was ensuring the law applied to everyone except them.

But bless his socks, Key out-thought them. At the eleventh hour, just as Labour were gearing up to link National to the far-right Christian anti s.59 amenders, he came out with a comprimise! F**k! so that screwed the Key and religious-nutter link, thus taking the fuel out of future Key-EB link conspiracies. Suddenly, the EFA, rather than being a stick with which to beat Key with was turning on its very designers.
It all went so terribly wrong! The plan was to design a law to advantage Labour, and embarrass National. It was going to be the flag-ship on which Labour would cruise to victory, while the opposition, gagged and impotent could only watch from the side-lines! But it became the Trojan Horse in Labour’s camp, highlighting not only Hlene’s dictatorial nature for all to see, but also (and this is her real crime) exposing her lack of political judgement in starkest relief, at a most crucial time. Result? A major Unions’ freedom of expression suppressed, where before it was not. All courtesy of a Party which clearly thought it was above the Law.

This is why the EFA will be Helen’s epitaph.

I didn’t think much of your 1:04 comment.

Now this is surely good “gamesmanship”, and a strategically astute move by National. But it also eliminates any pretence that National has to claiming a moral high ground on “free-speech” issues. In fact it renders their whole anti-EFB/A campaign a fraud. It’s always been about down and dirty politics, not principle.

Your argument: Labour good-National bad.

In reply:

(1) You characterise this as a “free speech” issue – but it’s equally arguable that the case is about integrity in the election process. The purpose of the Act includes a reference to “greater transparency and accountability on the part of candidates, parties, and other persons engaged in election activities in order to minimise the perception of corruption“.

(2) You appear not to have bothered to read the judgment:

For these reasons, I consider that the Union does potentially fall within the scope of s 13(2)(f) of the EFA and that the question of whether it does so must be determined by the Commission before it can be listed as a third party. I emphasise that, in so holding, I express no opinion whatever on that question.

The matter is to be remitted back to the Commission. You claimed much earlier on this thread: “And clearly the EPMU and the Labour Party are two very distinct organisations“. Given this, I’m surprised you’re not arguing that National’s won the battle but possibly not the war – but perhaps that doesn’t sit well with Labour good-National bad.

Other comments:

(3) You appear to think this case involves “complexity”. In fact, it’s a fairly straightforward application of “person” (a word which has a well-established legal meaning) in the context of the EFA.

(4) You claim not to be surprised that “the Act’s drafters didn’t see it coming”. Utter rubbish. I’ve worked with members of the very capable team at Parliamentary Counsel Office, so have some understanding of their internal processes. “Person” is a key concept in s 13, and it’s ridiculous to suggest (as you do) that PCO overlooked a key technical point. Don’t believe me? Read para [17] carefully – the Judge observes that “person” doesn’t have a uniform meaning in s 13.

(5) You speculate that “[The National Party] spent what must have been many thousands of dollars in order to argue an interpretation of the law that silences 50,000 people“. More Labour good-National bad. The Judge clearly didn’t view this as frivolous litigation, for the first sentence of the judgment says: “This application for judicial review raises a short but important point of statutory interpretation concerning the Electoral Finance Act 2007 (the EFA)“. Moreover, you conveniently overlook the fact that EPMU spent what must have been many thousands of dollars on lead counsel, R E Harrison QC, in order to argue an interpretation of the law that would defeat the clear purpose of s 13(2)(f) – as to that clear purpose, see para [22].

You’re playing spin-the-whisky-bottle, PhillipJohn, and you’d better hide it quickly before Deity Nigel turns up!

I noted this comment on the commie rag page

“It’s clear as day that the EFA was never intended to exclude democratic organisations such as the EPMU from campaigning”

There is NO way you can make that statement in clear conscience, you know why? Because NO-ONE including the Minister in charge had any idea what was going on as the legislation was so aborted.

One thing you can be clear about was that the Government of the day intended that entities associated with the National Party were to have their democratic rights curtailed while entities supporting the Labour Party were to have no such imposition.

So, in a round about way, the Commies were right with respect the original intent of the legislation not to exclude unions, but to exclude any pro Nat entity. Unfortunately it didn’t quite pan out as intended.

Better luck in 2012.

Has a government ever looked as incompetent as the Labour Government right now? It can’t seem to get anything right. The budget looks like it is shaping up to be a disaster as well. To be fair it is only in office now because it cheated its way back into office in 2005. It’s going to be decimated come November and will be out of office for a guaranteed six years.