Your preference for retail electioneering (which I am a supporter of also) is an urban view. This is not that possible in many seats. And glossy pamphlets are important – I prefer to be able to read about a candidate’s background and achievements and priorities, than judge them off a 10 second handshake.

All I was doing was pointing out an apparent discrepancy in your claims … unless there’s a reason why a $5000 “safety margin” is required for the $20,000 limit, but only a $3000 one for a $30000 limit? After all, the same uncertainties of apportionment, estimating value, etc would apply to the upper limit … so why would candidates be significantly less cautious if allowed to spend more money? If there is an explanation, I’d genuinely be interested in hearing it. Otherwise, let’s put that aside.

I don’t doubt that it is extremely difficult to stay under the $20,000 limit and engage in a full-throated direct communication blitz with the voters. I just don’t think that it matters that much. In particular, I think the inability to do so forces candidates to engage in other forms of “retail” electioneering and to rely more heavily on “free’ voluntary labour, which are preferable to spending money on spreading around more glossy pamphlets. So to that extent, I like it that candidates feel the pinch, because it produces a kind of politicking that I like. I’m happy to put that out on the table.

AG you have clearly never run an election campaign.

One can get an idea of how much politicians value their incumbency by looking at the resources they give themselves as electorate MP’s. The resourcing is considerable.

Actually pre MMP the electoral system largely prevented non Labour and National electorate candidates gaining election. It wasn’t that New Zealanders did not vote for non Labour and National political parties – its just that they learnt that in most cases this was a wasted voted.

Rules cause results voters learn and change their behaviour accordingly.

Labour and National have long co operated to ensure electoral law favours two party competition between them. The spending rules are no exception.

Regarding the 20k limit it was inadequate prior to 1996 when electorates increased in size by one third.

What you also don’t seem to realise that in a marginal seat campaign already much expenditure occurs outside the expense return. The low cap just drives this on. This has always been the case.

Please don’t naively rely on the expenses return in any hotly contested electorate as in anyway reflecting the resources being deployed.

There is also another snap shot of the advantages of incumbency – the two big Parliamentary parties are increasingly using list MP’s to run in marginal electorates when the tide in turning in their favour. I suspect that most electorate gains (if any for Labour) next election will be list MP’s based and working in those electorates. The low cap has a role in this. One simply cannot afford to build the profile inside the cap.

With all respect you are applying an academic reasoning that has no practical knowledge of actually running an electorate campaign. It is not as easy as aiming for $19,500. How much you appportion between party and electorate vote has to be calculated. How much you apportion outside the regulated period. Estimating the fair value of donated window space. Contingency allowances.

You also miss the point I made that spending limits should be based on empirical research into what they can buy. Being able to send two direct mail letters out over three months is not an unreasonable thing for candidates to be able to do. A candidate has to spend a fair whack of money just so voters know their name, let alone whether or not they have a good perception of them.

Your own analysis just doesn’t make sense. Candidates stopped a full $5000 short of the (you claim) far-too low $20,000 cap in 2008 due to fear of election petitions, yet would gladly risk spending within $3000 or $4000 of a far higher cap? Methinks you are wishing facts into existence to fit your preferences! Now, it may well be that upping the limits would cause some candidate to try to raise and spend more. But:
(1) how would that increase competition between candidates, given that there is no evidence that the current cap is inhibiting this … I reiterate, only Wellington Central saw a genuinely fought financial war that could be said to have been constrained by the existing $20,000 limit.
(2) why would more spending by electorate candidates be a good thing generally?

Chris,
Anyone not already an MP or otside Labour and National will struggle to win an electorate, irrespective of any limit on spending. You make the mistake of equating correlation with cause (i.e. these people don’t win under existing rules, therefore the rules are to blame). What you overlook is that NZ just does not have a tradition of electing independent MPs – last one was Winston Peters in an unopposed by-election … before he formed NZ First. Same goes for minor party candidates … most people still do not split their votes even under MMP. Further, how exactly does it help a candidate being “independently wealthy”, given that the rules don’t let you spend that wealth … ?

Finally, if you have some special insider knowledge on the government’s plans on resolving the Foreshore and Seabed, just spit it out. Otherwise, stop trying to thread-jack.

Sitting politicans love hyping up the risks from big spending challangers and big money influence from non candidate and non party speech. Watch them the will get all hot and bothered about this here. This is why in the US where the regulation is extreme, sitting pols are all getting wealthier on average and most face competition for the nomination not in the election.

Politicians by their very nature will opt for the lest competitive regulatory regime. And they alway dress complex regulation and low spending caps by saying they are protecting democracy.

Ironically the left in New Zealand actually want the Americanisation of our political system.

I have a fair knowledge of many campaigns in marginal seats. If the limit had been $30,000 they would have spent $27K or so. $40,000 and spent $36K or so. They most definitely had the money, or the ability to raise the money.

As for the parties, in both 2005 and 2008 the limits were reached. And this is inevitable when you do not inflation adjust. I would note that when both parties are spending well under the limit, there was far less squabbling between the parties. This is not an argument to have a massively high limit, but the limit should peraps be a limit not a target!

It is only comparatively recently that the spending caps on political parties have had any effect at all on political party advertising. In particular, it is only since 2005 that National and Labour appear to have been constrained by the limit on election expenses (with each party reporting spending over 95% of its permitted maximum election expenses at each of those elections). Therefore, up until the last couple of election cycles, the limit on political parties’ election expenses has been purely notional in its effect. So why not benchmark any increase in the political party spending caps to the rate of inflation since 2005, rather than go back to 1996 (where the cap was irrelevant in practice, as no-one could raise enough money to reach it anyway). Or, to put it another way, doesn’t experience show the original caps were set too high in 1996?

Even the $20,000 limit on individual candidate election expenses seems to have a minimal impact in terms of limiting advertising activity, if you look at the returns by individual candidates.
- At the 2008 election, only 3 candidates reported spending in excess of 95% of their maximum election expenses (i.e. more than $19,000). In no electorate did more than one candidate report spending in excess of 95% of their maximum election expenses.
- At the 2008 election, only a further 6 candidates reported spending in excess of 90% of their maximum election expenses (i.e. more than $18,000). In only one electorate (Wellington Central) did two candidates report spending in excess of 90% of their maximum election expenses.
- Therefore, only a handful of individual candidates even come close to spending up to the existing limit on election expenses, while in only one electorate contest can the limits be claimed to have constrained the competition between rival candidates. These figures strongly suggest that it is not the existing limit that restricts candidate spending in individual electorates, but rather the difficulty of raising funds for such contests and the minimal effectiveness of such spending (as opposed to spending on promoting their political parties’ brand). It also suggests your claim that the low cap is “incumbent protective” is mistaken.

It also is notable that none of the candidates who spent more than $18,000 on election expenses were contesting large rural seats, whilst in the geographically largest electorates – the Maori electorates – no candidate reported spending more than $15,000 (i.e. 75% of the maximum allowed). This fact may call into question any claim that an increase in the $20,000 maximum is required to allow for effective competition in those electorates covering quite large geographical areas.