Local Electoral Amendment Bill

March 14th, 2013 at 3:00 pm by David Farrar

The Justice and Electoral Select Committee has reported back the Local Electoral Amendment Bill. The Bill basically updates the local body election laws to much the same level as the national electoral laws, so that there is greater transparency around donations. Both John Banks and Len Brown didn’t disclose numerous donations last election through (legal) use of anonymous donations (Banks) and laundering them through trusts (Brown).

Beyond the changes in the original bill, they have recommended some further changes:

require that candidate profile statements include whether or not the candidate’s principal place of residence is in the local government area in question
allow electoral officers to publish all election returns
allow prosecutions for up to three years after an offence was committed

It will be good to see the bill pass into law.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 14th, 2013 at 3:00 pm and is filed under NZ Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

4 Responses to “Local Electoral Amendment Bill”

Graeme Edgeler (2,922) Says:
March 14th, 2013 at 4:38 pm
The police finding was not that Banks used legal means. It was that they were too late to charge him in the circumstances for the unlawful means he used.
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BlairM (2,020) Says:
March 14th, 2013 at 4:51 pm
No it won’t because people should be able to raise and spend as much money as they please in an election.
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wiseowl (265) Says:
March 14th, 2013 at 9:29 pm
If people are allowed to legitimately reside outside the area in question why include this provision.?
So the other candidates can lambast someone for not living within the electorate.?
eg if you were born and raised in an electorate and moved across the river eg crossed a boundary by 50 metres then you would become an ‘alien’?
Shocking.
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Nick K (537) Says:
March 14th, 2013 at 10:18 pm
I thought the Bill incorporated parts of the member’s bill of the Green Party that differentiated donations from expenses in candidates returns? The way the law reads now, they could be the same and candidates might not need to file donations returns.
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