Electoral Finance Reform Proposals
Two significant announcements from Simon Power. The first is that the three electoral agencies are being merged into one agency, which will be fully independent of the Government.
I’ve long advocated that, and it is great to see a Government finally doing it.
The Electoral Commission and the Chief Electoral Officer will merge by 1 October 2010 and the Chief Registrar of Electors will merge in after the 2011 election.
I presume the Commissioners will be appointed by Parliament. At present they are a mixture of appointment by the Minister and ex-officio the Secretary of Justice.
Simon Power has also released a proposal document, after the earlier discussion document, on electoral finance reform.
I’ll blog in more detail on the proposal document later, but I’m really pleased to see that in relatively contentious areas such as length of regulated period, broad casting allocations, they have proposed two or three options so that one can have a more useful debate (as in between options) as oppossed to clean slate discussion in the discussion document.
Really the process has been near flawless so far, and very inclusive. Total opposite to what the last Government did.
Submissions will be open until 30 October 2009.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Pity no state funding isn’t one of the options for broadcasting allocation.
Ele Ludemann
September 28th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I agree Ele. NO taxpayer funding should go to parties. If they can’t raise their own funds, then they are not fit to run the country.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Ele – it’s a bit like Working for Families. Once you have given them money, it is harder to take it away!
We’ve had the broadcasting allocation for several decades, so I’m pretty happy that there is no increase in state funding.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
DPF, I think that’s the whole point. Cancel the state funding, cancel WFF and slash tax rates. I think the term is “revenue neutral”. I do not nor, nor ever will, vote for any flavour of pink, and I’m pretty upset about the pink hues that are overlaying the current blue-tinted lot. I would rather not have someone decide for me which political party I donate to; if I don’t vote for them, why should I fund them?