Comments on: Third Party expenditure in 2008

By: OECD rank 22 kiwi

OECD rank 22 kiwi — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:57:48 +0000

The chilling effect for the EFA on democracy in New Zealand was unacceptable. Helen Clark lost her job because of it.
A deserved outcome.

By: Ferdinand

Ferdinand — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:44:33 +0000

I don’t see the Sensible Sentencing Trust there or the Asian Anti-Crime Group. What about John Boscown’s return? Or The EMA’s?

The only reason the bulk of the listed groups are left-wing is that left wing groups have complied with the law. A pity your group is the only right wing one that managed to do as well, David.

By: OECD rank 22 kiwi

OECD rank 22 kiwi — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:20:27 +0000

Thanks to the EFA Helen Clark took a nice big pay cut and is now spokesman for “who the hell cares”.

By: PaulL

PaulL — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:37:53 +0000

Ratbiter/Kimble: so the options are:
– Labour are incompetent, and their changes impacted their side way more than National, OR
– The EFA drove a whole lot of right wingers out of the debate, thereby advantaging Labour.

Hmmmmm. Hard to know which to pick. Either is plausible.

By: Inventory2

Inventory2 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:52:15 +0000

Speaking of the EPMU and The Standard, does anyone reckon that they’ll apologise to John Key for all their “John Key wants to cut your wages” smears last year?

http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/03/admit-you-were-wrong-lads.html

By: David Farrar

David Farrar — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:47:16 +0000

Yep that is right. Only cost was time.

By: Whaleoil

Whaleoil — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:03:41 +0000

$20k for youtube ads!!!!

David will attest to the fact that the Two Helens ad was whipped up on the coffee table in a motel in Taupo in about two hours and the voice was recorded in Tauranga. The whole ad cost us nothing but time and pretty much stopped Labour’s Two Johns ad overnight.

Ditto the three Downfall videos I made.

Someone needs to be paying me $20k for all those.

Still I am quite proud of our ramshackle PR fiasco….our little $29k went a very long way in terms of smacking around the government.

By: ben

ben — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:59:48 +0000

Its interesting to ask why Labour included this third party disclosure regime in the EFA if it would produce such an own goal for the Left.

Is it because there used to be large donations by right wingers but no more? Or did Labour’s conspiracy theorists get it wrong?

By: Kimble

Kimble — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:58:15 +0000

“And it seems that Labour’s EFA was effectively regulating far more of their own supporter’s dollars/actions than of their opponents’.”

Really? Surely it is possible that the EFA regulated more of Labours oppositions supporters to the point that they didnt engage in the political process.

We dont know. They dont show up in the stats. We can have a guess, given the level of expenditure in previous elections, at what extent democracy was discouraged. But that is about it.

All we see is that Labour supporters spent more than National supporters. I would say that the EFA performed exactly as Labour intended. Their own supporters spent more than the opposition’s.

By: Ratbiter

Ratbiter — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:49:39 +0000

Newsflash: Trade unions are a bit political! The dirty left, eh?

At least we KNOW to what extent “Big business” and “The Unions” dipped their oars in this time around.

And it seems that Labour’s EFA was effectively regulating far more of their own supporter’s dollars/actions than of their opponents’. Does this make Labour more evil, or less evil? Or is their evil unchanged by this information?

By: Monty

Monty — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:37:30 +0000

Add into that the amount of money spent by the EPMU on their inhouse / Labour Party Blog “the Standard” the amount of time those over paid oafs spent demonising John Key would have been very substantial. Should that money not also be included in their returns?

By: MikeE

MikeE — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:04:31 +0000

Youtube ads cost $20k?

wtf?

By: Bryce Edwards

Bryce Edwards — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:00:28 +0000

NUPE is the National Union of Public Employees and is mainly based in Christchurch. It’s a breakaway from the PSA. In the late 1980s (or early 1990s?) some unionists in the PSA thought that it was too Labour Party aligned, too moderate, and not supportive enough of its members, so they broke away.

Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz

By: Nicholas O'Kane

Nicholas O'Kane — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:53:58 +0000

Who is NUPE?

Regarding the free speech coalition, did the billboards put up at the begining of last year, the ones comparing Clark to the fijian coup leader in Auckland, and Peters to the North korean dictator stay in place throughout the whole year.

[DPF: No]

By: Bryce Edwards

Bryce Edwards — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:27:48 +0000

Interesting stuff. It’d be nice if someone would add to this list (or the downloadable Excel file from the Electoral Commission website) some sort of further detail on the political nature of how these third parties spent their money – i.e. was it spent in some sort of pro-party way, and what issue were they pushing?

Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz

By: gingercrush

gingercrush — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:19:44 +0000

The Dairy Workers Union is laughable. I know unions are leftist and pathetic. But when the Green Party advocates major cuts to dairying and would like to see less dairy farms. Why would you then give money to the Greens who in reality would take jobs away from the dairy industry.