I suggest that John Key pardon everybody involved in these breaches – except the Greens.

Hopefully this will be the first of many times that the Greens are hauled before court to face up for their crimes.

pushmepullu 
No no no…cannabis charges first!

I find the obsession with it as boring and irrelevant now as I did then, and THAT is the true evidence of NZ being a banana republic. That so many people give so much of a shit about so little.

The Act should be repealed with limited retrospective effect, to eliminate “breaches” involving nothing more than the exercise of free speech. I’m no fan of retrospective legislation, but in this case it’s needed.

Exactly right. Since the jacket complaint was made by an ACT party member, and since it is trivial and since the CEO of the E.C. complained about the “chilling effect” of the EFA – you’d expect her instead to say: this highlights the chilling effect of the EFA… and dismiss it as inconsequential. She knew it was an exercise in free speech.

In politics more than anything else, there are no free lunches and no amazing coincidences.

And the EC made this decision without any evidence as it hadn’t seen the authorisation statement. It had no address on it so it was not a valid authorisation statement. It simply said ” Authorised by Nick Kearney.. as required by Helen.”

And that is a leftie for you. As it happens I have a LL.B and a BSc from Otago and an LLM from Cambridge. Do you still wish to discuss my intellect?

The midnight conga line to banana republic status began a looooonnnnnnng time ago.

The mere fact you needed to read an ‘official’ statement from a government bureaucrat into whether a fence picket or an item of clothing constitutes a breach of x y or z only highlights the sad state of affairs in this country.

How much did this waste cost us in lost productivity and wasted resources?

Oops. The Electoral Commission missed that one.

And the ACT Party makes much of the rule of law and the importance of law and order.

I hope that Rodney will plead guilty, make it clear that he is completely unrepentant and feels no remorse and that he expects to be punished to the full extent of the law.

He must also not support the retrospective repeal of the EFA. The Act must be repealed — it is repugnant to decency — but the principle that everyone has to abide by all the laws enacted by parliament is more important.

Anything else will be gross hypocrisy.

So before you accuse others of throwing words around they don’t understand, try to demonstrate a shred of competence yourself. It will do wonders for your credibility.

The depth of your intellectual response matches the quality of your name.

In fact, it seems to me to be doubtful whether the Green actions were actually an intentional breach of the law (the Commission deciding they were): the breach was predominantly due to vandalism, the signs originally displaying promoter statements. Act’s breach, however, was clearly intentional. It was designed to get publicity. It was also persistent and was never rectified. Deliberate breaches of the law should be referred to the police, or we do risk becoming a banana republic.

You are fucking kidding? Knob.

The pledge card expense gives me particular angst. Each party gets a budget to spend on publicity. In 2005 National chose to spend its money on those odious Iwi Kiwi billboards and on Crosby Textor advice. Labour saved its money up and spent it on the pledge card. This small piece of publicity contained promises from Helen and Labour what they would do if elected. They then did exactly what they promised to do. How this is somehow dishonest beggars me.

Then when the Auditor General chose to say that things were different to how all of the parties thought it would be Labour, through its MPs and members paid the money back. This is not evidence of corruption, it is evidence of the greatest amount of good will.

Let National open its records of donations received and expenditure of Parliamentary Services money and then let us have this debate.

Speeding cars? Well I should go to the closest jail and offer myself up for prison. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Evidence of corruption? You throw words around without actually understanding their meaning.

Wait for 5 years and then look back and realise that Helen did a remarkable job as PM.

You’ve got to admit that the jacket was a brilliant piece of publicity.

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