International perspectives on electoral finance reform
April 13th, 2010 at 10:00 am by David FarrarOtago University and the VUW Institute of Policy Studies have organised a public seminar on National’s proposed electoral finance reforms, and international perspectives on such reforms. The key details are:
Friday 14 May 2010
RW501 Level 5, Wellington Railway Station (West Wing)
8.40am to 12.15pm
The programme is:
8.20-8:40: Registration and coffee/tea
8:40-8:45: Welcome by Jonathan Boston
8:45-9:00: Andrew Geddis – New Zealand’s proposed new political finance rules.
9:00-9:50: Jacob Rowbottom – What lessons does the U.K.’s experience have for New Zealand’s proposals?
9:50-10:40: Colin Feasby – What lessons does Canada’s experience have for New Zealand’s proposals?
10:40-11:00: Coffee/Tea Break
11:00-12:15: Joo-Cheong Tham and Graeme Orr – What lessons does Australia’s experience have for New Zealand’s proposals?Please note the Symposium will be followed by a seminar by Jacob Rowbottom entitled The British General Election and the Prospects for Electoral Reform
If you wish to attend then email: law.reception@otago.ac.nz (please include the “political finance symposium” in the subject line of your email).
I’m attending and looking forward to it.
Related posts:
- Consensus kills most meaningful electoral finance reform
- Electoral Finance Reform Proposals
- Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill Submission
- Electoral Finance Reform Bill out
April 13th, 2010 at 10:53 am
This looks excellent. In developing and judging new political finance regulations we really need to take a very comprehensive look at international experience of varying regulation “solutions”. This was one of the big problems with Labour’s EFA – it was developed with only lip service to comparative political finance. In particular, it cherry picked bits and pieces from other systems, and it used only a very narrow range of countries – especially Canada and the UK.
Yet Simon Power’s proposed reforms – as well as this seminar – also appear to suffer from the same problem of only really looking at Australia, UK and Canada – which are really not great examples of political finance reform. Better to look to Western Europe – and Scandinavia in particular, where the PR electoral systems there do not have such highly-interventionist and heavy regulatory frameworks for dealing with private political finance. For example, there are many northern European countries that also do not put limits on campaign expenditure – such as Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark – and these less regulated systems appear to work very well. Yet we still have a fixation on only studying a narrow range of countries and solutions. We are in urgent need or broadening out the political finance debate and mindset.
Bryce
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