Have Labour and Greens broken the CIR Act?

Whale blogs:

Back in March last year David Farrar asked if the Greens, Labour and the might break the Citizens Initiated Referendum Act.

On of that leaked documents showed that they intended to work together on the referendum, utilising taxpayer funds to do so.

Those documents clearly show it was a co-ordinated campaign working together.

S42 of the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act states:

Every person commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $20,000 who, either alone or in combination with others knowingly spends, on advertisements published or broadcast in relation to an indicative  petition, more than $50,000

And the election returns show:

  • Service and Food Workers Union – $26,269
  • Labour party – $45,382.95 
  • Public Service Association – $3987.18
  • The Green party  – $39,541.49
  • The NZ Council of Unions – $523.20
  • First Union – $23,356.08
  • The NZEI – $547
  • NZ Nurses Organisation – $556

Whale points out:

Total Spend  by Unions, Labour and the Greens is $140,162.90

Labour and the Greens by themselves breach the act, with combined spending of $84,924.44

Will be very interesting to see what the result of a complaint would be.

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