Kiwiblog

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.

The Herald backs Clark and Key in agreeing to debates between the two of them only:

They need make no apology for that. Theirs are the only parties capable of forming a government. Far from undermining MMP, their joint decision is perfectly in line with the way MMP has developed in this country. After 12 years, the voting system has not produced a three- or four-party contest as it did in Germany, the only close model.

There, the two smaller parties each attract around 10 per cent of the vote and can claim significant places on the stage at each election. The most successful of our smaller parties have half that support and it becomes harder to argue that they should be included in televised debates while others should not. …

National and Labour have a legitimate shared interest in minimising third-party influence. They are under no obligation to let minnows enjoy their limelight. They obviously see their prospects best served by a simple two-sided debate. The rest will no doubt get a separate televised forum for their contest.

And there is a debate on TV One on 27 October between the six minor parliamentary parties.

Meanwhile Pundit has a copy of the letter sent to Clark and Key from TVNZ and TV3 jointly:

A joint letter from news chiefs at TV3 and TVNZ last Monday pleaded with both Helen Clark and John Key not to turn their backs on multi-party debates, insisting they were of “fundamental importance in an MMP environment”.

I have said I think there should be one debate with all eight leaders. I would have four debates – two head to heads, one with all eight and one with only the minors.

But I do think people over-state MMP as the reason for including the minors. Social Credit has twice as many MPs as Jim Anderton, yet Bruce Beetham never got invited to the debates.

But talking of debates, the Alliance is complaining the CTU has refused to allow them to attend a Meet the Parties meeting in Christchurch:

Alliance Party Canterbury Convenor Quentin Findlay says the the local Council of Trade Unions leadership has locked the Alliance out of the debate.

He says Alliance members would be picketing the venue and would accept a last minute invitation to speak.

“All we are asking is for a chance to speak. No special treatment, we just to want to talk to the workers.”

Mr Findlay says the Alliance is a strongly pro-worker party that strongly supports the Union movement, and had not taken the decision to go public lightly.

The NZ Herald has a helpful photo gallery of all of Clark’s misbehaving Ministers. With yesterday’s revelations they should add her to the list. The short version is:

1. Dover Samuels – sexual misconduct allegations
2. Ruth Dyson – drunk driving
3. Phillida Bunkle – claiming a Wellington housing allowance despite living in Wellington
4. Marian Hobbs – claiming a Wellington housing allowance despite living in Wellington
5. Lianne Dalziel – lying
6. John Tamihere – accepting golden handshake from his trust
7. David Benson-Pope – lying
8. Taito Phillip Field – charged with bribery and other corruption
9. David Parker – apparent false Companies Office returns
10. Trevor Mallard – assault
11. Winston Peters – investigated by SFO for serious or complex fraud

It might be shorter to do the list of those who have not been in trouble!

The Electoral Commission announced on 19 May 2008 its determination for the 2008 broadcasting allocation.

I blogged on the allocations here. The allocations, in a relative sense, favour the smaller parties with the two major parties getting 62% of the allocation despite getting over 80% of the vote.

The Alliance Party was one of ten parties who got $10,000 to spend on broadcasting time, $7,000 for a production package for the opening address and 1 minute for the opening and no time for the closing. They are challenging this allocation in court, and it will be heard on 15 September.

I blogged in June that the Alliance was already getting $10.36 a vote while Labour got $1.07 a vote, so I doubt they have any chance of sucess with increasing their $17,000 allocation. They are also challenging the decision for some of their money to be on a production package – and they may have a better chance of success there. One also can not rule out that they may gain some sympathy to their argument they should have some time allocated for a closing address – no matter how short.

The Alliance are asking for each of the non parliamentary parties to go from $17,000 to $32,000. This would cost $150,000 and they propose Labour and National lose $75,000 each.

A new twist is that the Family Party (Destiny in drag with 1,052 members) have also joined the lawsuit, and are asking the Judge to increase their $17,000 to $100,000 plus seven minutes in total for opening and closing. They are pushing shit uphill to be honest, but I do find their reasoning amusing:

• They made 0.3% in two polls
• They plan to win Mangere
• They are the only Christian party, and Christians make up half of NZ’s population
• The Government has passed some laws they don’t like, and ignores public opinion (which is true but has nothing to do with broadcasting allocations)

I am looking forward to the arguments in court!

Thanks to No Right Turn, I note the Alliance are taking the Electoral Commission to court over their broadcasting allocation.

The Alliance say:

“The current allocation process is terminally stacked against non-parliamentary parties, in that they lack the ‘oxygen of publicity’ that Parliament provides. Election time is the only time the public have an opportunity to hear new ideas and fresh thinking from outside the status quo parties.”

And No Right Turn agrees them, even though he notes they have little chance of success:

… the basic thrust of the law is “larger parties get more money”. It’s unjust, its inequitable, it denies democratic choice, and it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy which preserves the status quo.

But how hard done by is the Alliance. Let’s look at dollars per vote. They were allocated $17,000 of taxpayer assistance for their broadcasting. In 2005 they received 1,641 votes (0.07%) so they get $10.36 per vote.

Labour got $1,000,000 for their 935,319 (41.10%) votes. That is $1.07 per vote.

I can’t see the Alliance winning somehow.

The broadcasting allocations have to give some credence to how much support a party has. It would be ridicolous to give the Animals First party the same funding as Labour. Everyone would set up a party if it meant they got an equal share of the $3.2 million.

And again I disagree with NRT that the major parties are advantaged. They get in fact less money proportionally than the smaller parliamentary parties. National and Labour between them get only 62% of the funding despite being over 85% of the vote. Sure you can argue Jim Anderton should get the same funding as National, but who would?

The real indignity is that parties can not top up their allocatins with their own money. That is what is abhorent. The Alliance is prevented from spending a single dollar on top of their allocation on broadcasting. Because of this restriction there is a greater argument that they should have a higher allocation as the allocation is also a limit. But if I was changing the law I don’t think it would serve NZers well to have the smallest fringe party get equal time to the major parties. I would just remove the inability to top up.