The Alliance wins
The Alliance has just won a court case against the Electoral Commission. The judgement is here – CA6392008.
The Court of Appeal has ruled that the Electoral Commission must give political parties time for both an opening and a closing address. In 2008 the Commission gave the Alliance (which got 0.07% of the vote in 2005 and 0.08% in 2008) and ten other minor non-parliamentary parties one minute for an opening address and no time for a closing address, out of the total 72 minutes made available from broadcasters for opening addresses and 30minutes for closing addresses.
Now s73(1) of the Broadcasting Act says:
In respect of each election period, the Electoral Commission must allocate to political parties, in such proportions as the Electoral Commission considers appropriate, the time that TVNZ and RNZ have made available for opening addresses and closing addresses in accordance with section 71A.
The question was whether the Commission must give each party both an opening and closing address.
The High Court found it would be wrong under the Bill of Rights Act to give a political party no time at all for either opening or closing, but that s73 refers to a single allocation of time, and some components of that allocation may be zero, so long as the total allocation is not zero.
The Court of Appeal has sided with the Alliance and ruled that the Act requires each party to get time for both an opening and closing address, despite the fact they had only 30 minutes of closing time for 18 parties.
What is interesting is that the Court of Appeal suggests TVNZ breached the ACT by only providing 30 minutes for closing addresses, as this is not enough time to divide up between 18 parties, considering the parties on 40% in the polls are meant to get more time than those at 0.07%. TVNZ may face problems if they do not increase the allocation next election.
The Court also deals with the issue of whether the Electoral Commission should have given more than $10,000 to non-parliamentary parties for their broadcast advertising. The Commission escapes a formal ruling from the Court, but it notes that their reference to the amount being enough for a radio campaign was in error, as it suggests they knew the amount was not enough for a television campaign.
So the Electoral Commission gets pretty battered by this decision. But the good thing is, the law is now clearer. And hopefully the law will also be changed so parties can spend their own money purchasing broadcast advertising, rather than only be allowed to use taxpayer money.
February 10th, 2010 at 11:47 am
Is it not plainly anti-democratic to have laws which coercively allocate resources to political parties based on votes earned at the last election? In what sense is it democratic to have laws which entrench incumbents and which lock out challengers?
February 10th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
It’s anti-democratic that people standing for election get to make the rules about elections at all. As long as they have that power this kind of thing is inevitable since politicians are scum.
February 10th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I am am an Alliance Party member and have been since Anderton crawled off. Congratulations to Andrew and his team for taking this to court and participating. Also thanks for the other parties not claiming costs in the High Court case.
Why shouldn’t non-parliamentary parties get this small amount of advertising around election time. Parties that are in parliament are already known, there ideas and beliefs are already known (and publicised for free). Other parties have reason to exist, the Alliance is a Democratic Socialist / Social Democratic party that is not currently similar into the parliament. The Labour Party is centralist Liberal party and no longer close to what I would call socialist (despite what some people here might think)
I thank (maybe Graeme can confirm) that in Canada there was a ruling that small parties should get more free advertising as the news media tended to ignore small parties.
To register a Party you need 500 people willing to pay to join.
If people think that 18 parties is too many, why? Should we be like Iran where candidates are banned because they are considered unsuitable by the leadership elite?
Surely in a democracy it is a small prize to pay to have a few minutes of free advertising (every 3 years). As the incumbent party policy is well know maybe they shouldn’t be able to advertise at all?
February 10th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
I tend to agree, having done a paper or two in political philosophy, that all electoral funding should be public. So no private funding required. I’m not 100% sure how those public fund should be apportioned though.
February 10th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Unlike the commynists and freeloaders who know damned well the only way they get broadcasting time is to steal it I believe that ALL political funding, for any purpose, should only be from monies raised by a party for that purpose so I agree DPF, “hopefully the law will also be changed so parties can spend their own money purchasing broadcast advertising”.