It’s the little things that get you. Those dismissive, off-hand, arrogant little gestures that suddenly throw the bigger picture into sharp focus.

I’d tuned into the live-feed from parliament to watch the third reading debate of the Electoral Finance Bill. Here, at last, I thought, is Labour’s, New Zealand First’s and the Greens’ big chance to make their case. …  But, what did I see on the government side of the House? Row after row of empty seats. The contrast with the Opposition could hardly have been starker. Around the figure of Opposition leader John Key, I counted off practically all of National’s key spokespeople, and behind them sat most of the party’s backbenchers.

Where was Helen Clark? Where was Michael Cullen? Where was Phil Goff? Where were the serried ranks of the centre-left, proudly demonstrating their solidarity with the bill’s authors? For if ever there was an occasion for the whole of the house to be in attendance this was it.

How well I recall my old political studies professor, Tony Wood, lecturing his New Zealand politics class on matters constitutional. No, he said, this country does not have a written constitution, but it has something which is almost as good the Electoral Act. The clauses of that act, he told us, were entrenched meaning that they could not be repealed or amended except by referendum, or by a majority comprising three-quarters of the House of Representatives. The law pertaining to elections, he solemnly informed us, was the cornerstone of our democracy.

So where, on this day that vitally important aspects of “the law pertaining to elections” were about to be amended and repealed without the mandate of a referendum, and without anything approaching a three-quarters majority of the House of Representatives, were Helen Clark, Michael Cullen and Phil Goff?

Their seats were empty.

They should not have been. By their absence from this crucial debate, Labour’s leaders sent everyone their fellow MPs, their loyal supporters, the electorate as a whole a devastating (and some have said electorally suicidal) message.

They simply didn’t care.

Accused of holding New Zealand’s democratic traditions in utter contempt; charged with harbouring authoritarian, even dictatorial, ambitions; Labour’s leaders simply couldn’t be bothered to defend either themselves or their bill. They had other places to be; other people to see.

John Key knew where he had to be on Tuesday evening and he was there. The cameras captured the image for the whole of New Zealand to see. A young man, his eyes alight with passion, defending New Zealand’s democratic traditions and promising the nation that, should it repose its trust in his party: “We will repeal this bill.”

And as he sat down, all his colleagues rose to give him a standing ovation. The chamber rang with their applause.

He should have been answered by a prime minister. In response to Key’s charges we should have heard the thundering rebuttal of a Labour leader every bit as committed to upholding New Zealand’s democratic traditions as the National Party. We should have heard her prosecute the case against the malefactors of great wealth; against the economic royalists who would buy elections in the same way that they had bought everything else belonging to the people of New Zealand.

And when she sat down, all the government members, and with them all of those representing NZ First and the Greens, should have risen to their feet and cheered her to the echo.

And following the prime minister, Michael Cullen should have stood and eviscerated the Opposition with his rapier wit. And following him, Phil Goff should have bruised them with his wrath. It didn’t happen.

This unmandated, unloved, and probably unworkable bill was voted into law to the noisy condemnation of its enemies and the sullen silence of it friends.

It’s the little things that get you.

As you read about how the Government has broken the constitutional conventions around the “cornerstone of our democracy” you would be forgiven for thinking you were reading Matthew Hooton’s column.  But no, that was last week.  This was Chris Trotter’s column.

The Dominion Post said:

When United Future MP Peter Dunne is prepared to jump ship, it’s a fair bet the vessel in question is the Titanic, The Dominion Post writes.

… The legislation is undemocratic, and the process by which Labour and its supporters have foisted it on the public has been an exercise in the arrogance of power.… The indefensibility of Labour’s position is only highlighted by the fact that at the same time it acted to restrict the role of those outside Parliament in political debate, it ensured that MPs are protected against challengers by extending a temporary regime that allows them to spend public money on their campaigns in a way the auditor-general had previously ruled was illegal.

And The Press says:

In any event, whatever happens next year, the legislation is thoroughly bad law and the process by which it was shoved through Parliament indefensible.

The Government has only itself to blame for the mess it has made of the matter. The bill was introduced with next to no consultation with anyone other than the cronies Labour needed to get it through the House. This was unforgivable for legislation of this kind. Consensus may be an unreachable goal on something as inherently as contentious as electoral finance, but some measure of consultation was called for. Labour did not make the slightest effort at it. The result was a bill that was a disaster that few but the party’s most uncritical followers could swallow. It was all too plainly designed not to deal honestly and fairly with an important problem but rather to shield an embattled government from any critical comment during an election year. The Government has since made multiple amendments in an attempt to remove some of the more offensive elements of the legislation, but the effort has not been sufficient. The Government was clearly prepared from the outset to ride roughshod over long-established principles. Trying to patch the matter up with all sorts of adjustments and fixes was never going to work. It should have gone back and started the process over.

The country is now left with a highly inadequate piece of legislation governing a central element of the democratic process. Parties and pressure groups will enter the election year with no clear idea of what sort of advertising is permissible. There is a clear risk that parties will engage in tit-for-tat complaints to try to shut down rivals by tying them up with expensive and time-consuming legal battles. Worse than that, from January 1, 11 months before any likely election, a firm engaged by the Electoral Commission will be conducting surveillance of political advertising to see that it complies with the law, something that will strike most fair-minded people as having the smack of Big Brother about it.

The Northern Advocate:

It’s a victory for shroud-waving, paranoia, envy and deceit. It gives power to the parties and to hell with the people. It says that if you can’t win by fair means, then make the foul lawful.

It has all been a telling illustration of how immune politicians can become to adverse public opinion that they can treat those to whom they should be answerable with such arrogance.

Having none themselves, they fail to recognise principles in others and scorn any who raise a voice in dissent as being driven by greed and self interest. By their definition it is not possible to defend democracy or to be capable of moral rectitude without agreeing implicitly with their own political ambitions.

I am told there is also an excellent ODT editorial, but I can’t locate a copy.

But just $70 will keep a billboard alive for another day. If you go and donate $70 at the Coalition’s website, we’ll keep a billboard up for another day. We can even proudly allocate a day to you, so you can claim the credit for a particular billboard on a particular day.

If you wish to donate more than $70, that of course is great. For those “rich pricks” as our Minister of Finance calls them, we have the following options:

1. $70 for one non-Auckland billboard for one day
2. $100 for one Auckland billboard for a day
3. $150 for two non-Auckland billboards for a day
4. $200 for one Auckland billboard for a weekend
5. $500 for a billboard for a week
6. $2,000 keeps a billboard up for an entire month. 11 of these and they are up until election day.
7. $5,000 gets you an entirely new billboard with a new authoritarian and a new location for a month. You can pick to have it in your local town or suburb.
8. $10,000 gets you your own personal billboard for three months

And if you are a “poor prick”, you are very welcome to donate less than $70.  Many supporters have given $20 and they are valued.

All praise the Herald.  It is vitally important that MPs understand that what they have done is so bad, that there will be consequences.  Destroying the constitutional conventions around the Electoral Act is not a minor escapade.

Also have to enjoy their sense of humour as the montage is headed up “In order to Inform, Enlighten and Entertain”, with a note that this is the only things the media are allowed to do from 1 January under the Act.

Their editorial pulls no punches:

The Electoral Finance Bill’s passage through Parliament late yesterday corrodes democracy and shames those whose names stand beside it as it enters the statutes. From January 1, political discourse will be less free, except for political parties – those private organisations that happen to provide the incumbent members of Parliament.

Today’s Herald has a story on the billboards and also Tim Shadbolt’s plans.

Audrey Young also blogs the Best of the Electoral Finance Bill Awards.  Best Speech gone to Maori Party MP and longtime protester Hone Harewira.  You must read this speech:

Yes folks money talks, but nothing talks quite like the truth, and the truth about this Bill is that it’s nothing but an arrogant dismissal by this Labour-led government to deny the citizens of Aotearoa / New Zealand the right to participate in one of the fundamental rights of any so-called “democratic society”  how you elect your government.

It’s about the sweet scent of power, and the lust for control. It’s about the decadence of corruption, the stench of deceit, and the refusal to accept the reality of impending defeat.

Yes, there have been amendments, hell we even voted for one of them, but given the constitutional importance of legislation that will play a critical role in determining how the next election will be fought  stitching up this deal behind closed doors, and then adding a veneer of democracy through a select committee process, is nothing but a sick joke.

We will not be party to this desperate attempt by Labour to stay in power at the expense of the fundamental human rights of the citizens of this country.

We will not be party to a bill designed to put fear into those who would speak their mind, by forcing them to run the gauntlet of registration, audit, notification, financial agency, monitoring, reporting, scrutiny, and penalty.

Madam Speaker, money is not what drives people to vote, it is truth …

And I sincerely hope and pray, that those who have sacrificed the truth for the delusion of power, that overwhelms this decadent and depraved piece of legislation, will come to see the folly of their ways when the people reject this sham, come Election 2008.

Again what a great speech.  Now for the other awards from Audrey:

Worst speech went to Winston Peters and no one could disagree.  A bizarre rambling speech.

Best quote went to John Key:

“If you are in favour of free speech then you are in favour of freedom of speech precisely for the views you despise. Otherwise you are not in favour of free speech.” They are not the word of a random right winger. They are not the words of a former treasurer of the Act Party… They are the words of Noam Chomsky, a man who is not from the left but from the far left.

Indeed.

Democracy Attacks Back

The Free Speech Coalition has launched a billboard campaign today against the parties which voted for the Electoral Finance Act.

“The Electoral Finance Act was correctly labeled by the New Zealand Herald as an “Attack on Democracy” so we think it is fitting that Democracy should attack back.” Said spokesperson David Farrar

Three billboards are initially going up.  One in Auckland targeting Helen Clark, one in Tauranga for Winston Peters and one in Wellington for Peter Dunne.  They are a clear statement that we regard their legislation as anti-democratic and unconstitutional.  MPs are there to serve the public, not to silence the public.

As Peter Dunne did flip-flop at the last second and vote against at the final reading, we are considering amending the Wellington billboard.  The original and revised billboards are attached and we are seeking feedback from the public as to which one they think should go up.

We do not know whether these billboards will breach the Electoral Finance Act after 1 January.  If they are deemed election advertisements which advocate against a party then we will be in breach of the law if we do not register as a third party.  For that reason we yesterday filed a request with the Electoral Commission to register.

It is possible however they could be considered election advertisements advocating against a candidate.  In that scenario the limit is $4,000 and we would be breaking the law to keep these billboards up in January.  This just illustrates how unclear the new law is.  The Coalition will be asking the Electoral Commission for advice as we do not wish to break the law.

We hope the public enjoy the billboards over summer.  We only have funding to keep them up for a month but will be asking people to donate to keep them up longer, or to allow us to roll out more billboards in more cities. 

ENDS

Q&A on the Free Speech Coalition Billboards

1. Where are they going up?

The  Helen Clark billboard is was put up today near Auckland Airport at the corner of Kirkbride Road and George Bolt Drive.  It is a 12×3 metre site.  It was then hit by some obscure government policy which prohibits “controversial” ads on schools and was taken down despite a commercial contract in place for use of the site.

It is going back up this afternoon on the corner of Carbine Road and the South-Eastern Highway, which incidentally is a far busier location.

The Winston Peters billboard will go up Thursday in Tauranga at the corner of Jean Batten Drive and Hewletts Road, Mt Maunganui.

The Wellington billboard goes up in early January on Jervois Quay, just north of Willeston Street.

2. What is the rationale for each billboard?

We have carefully selected an appropriate authoritarian for each billboard.

Helen Clark has been a trenchant critic of Fiji’s Commodore Bainimarama for his unconstitutional activities.  She fails to see the parallel with the Electoral Finance Bill which restricts criticism of her Government.  Like Bairimarama she is convinced she is pursuing noble ends, and believes this justifies the means.

Winston Peters of course has just been to North Korea as a guest of their Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il.  We are sure his hosts would support the state restricting what citizens can say against the Government.

Peter Dunne has been an admirable champion of human rights for the Taiwanese, and the Greens likewise have admirably defended the human rights of Tibet. But for paying more attention to human rights overseas, and ignoring the NZ Human Rights Commission, the congratulations from Mao seem appropriate as it is a double standard he would be proud of.

3. Some of those leaders have done terrible things.  Are you saying the Government here is as bad as them?

No, of course not.  We are saying their forcing through of the Electoral Finance Bill against massive opposition and in breach of longstanding constitutional conventions is a step in the direction of authoritarianism, and that one step along that path is a step too far.

We note that both the Dominion Post and the NZ Herald have given out a Kim Jong-Il award this week, to a New Zealand MP.  This is in a similar spirit as those awards.

4. How much are the billboards costing and who paid for them?

The three sites combined cost $7,000 for a month’s rental.  There are some production costs on top of that.

The Free Speech Coalition has had donations from scores of New Zealanders, and all donors get listed on our website at www.killthebill.org.nz

5. How can people support the Free Speech Coalition

By donating to allow us to keep running more billboards. Our creative team is ready and waiting to go.  People can donate online with a credit card at www.killthebill.org.nz, can post donations to PO Box 12270, Thorndon, Wellington or do Internet Banking transfers into BNZ Account 02-0500-0908920-00

The Free Speech Coalition, set up to campaign against the Electoral Finance Bill, is sad that MPs from Labour, NZ First, and the Greens have ignored the massive public sentiment against the bill.

The Act discourages individuals and groups from participating in the electoral process and spending their own money, while at the same time allows MPs and parliamentary parties to far more easily use taxpayer funds on their election campaigns and not even have it count towards their spending limits. It is the ultimate act in hypocrisy.

The MPs have

• Ignored the Law Society’s advice that the Bill should be scrapped
• Ignored the Human Rights Commission opposition to the regulated period, and their request to allow the public to submit on the amended Bill
• Ignored the NZ Institute of Charted Accountant’s advice that the Bill is unworkable
• Ignored the Electoral Commission’s advice on spending limits
• Failed to provide legislative certainty around the exemptions for MPs
• Protected anonymous donations with massive loopholes which may result in less, not more, disclosure
• Continually misrepresented key clauses of the Bill

“New Zealand has no written constitution. At the end of the day 61 MPs in Parliament can pass any law they like, no matter how repugnant. Previously constitutional conventions have protected Acts like the Electoral Act, but the passage of the Electoral Finance Bill sees the demise of that convention.” said spokesperson David Farrar.

“We hoped the parties supporting this Bill would listen to the near universal opposition from the media, from the legal profession, and from the public and do the right thing. Sadly they have chosen not to.

“We do not believe there should be no consequences for those parties which passed the Electoral Finance Act into law. The NZ Herald correctly labeled it as an “Attack on Democracy” and we believe it is time for Democracy to attack back.

“The Free Speech Coalition will commence an advertising campaign tomorrow against parties and MPs which voted for the Electoral Finance Act. This campaign will continue into 2008. A media advisory with details of the campaign will be released tomorrow.

ENDS

In favour – Labour 49, NZ First 7, Green 6, Progressive 1

Against – National 48 against, Maori 4, United Future 2, Act 2, Field 1
Total: 63 to 57

UPDATE: Yes Dunne has confirmed he is voting against.

UPDATE 2: I have very mixed feelings about the sincerity of what Peter Dunne has done.  I am glad he has voted against, but at every stage where his vote was actually important he has gone with the Government.  He never once protested the 11 month regulated period.  He voted against many amendments which would have improved the Bill.  I am not sure one vote flipflop at the last possible moment, knowing it will make no difference to the outcome, really means he does not continue to share liability for the law.

You see Labour is broke and needs to both have the taxpayer pay for its campaign, but also in case they do raise some money, not have the taxpayer spend count towards the limit.

So King has to back down.  And she did so today in the third reading.  She said:

My original view was too narrow.

She went onto to say that the exemption for MPs should include

provision of policy options and analysis to the electorate

A 180 degree flip-flop from her earlier view.  Sounds much like an election campaign to me – providing policy options and analysis to the electorate.

And then finally she referred to how

MPs behaviour governed by Appropriations Act 2007 and Speaker’s Guidelines

In other words having amended one law to over-ride the Auditor-General, they now want the other law (the Electoral Finance Act) to exempt from spending limits anything approved by The Parliamentary Service.

This final act of Annette King’s is the final proof that the motivations of those voting for the Bill is entirely self seeking – it is to allow them to run taxpayer funded election campaigns, and not even have them count as part of the limits they place on everyone else.

It is hard to decide what the worst feature of the Electoral Finance Bill is:

a) that it was pursued with such self-interest by Labour without the bipartisan approach associated with something as important as electoral law;

b) extending the regulated period for electioneering almost all of election year; or

c) that it gives incumbent MPs an even greater unfair advantage over outside rival candidates and groups that oppose them or their policies.

Audrey goes on to talk about how it will legalise Labour’s pledge card.

And this really highlights the magnitude of Labour’s incompetence on this issue.  National was nervous about being seen to defend secret trusts, anonymous donations and parallel campaigns by the Brethren. They did not want electoral reform to be a controversial issue.

All Labour had to do a year ago was sit down with National, and other parties, and agree on some basic principles, publish them for public comment, and then introduce a law based on that.  It would have flown through.

My 2^nd post in March was to express concern at secret negotiations on the EFB and that changes should only be made with bipartisan support or an election commitment.  My concern was truly justified.

Then in April I commented on the leaked Cabinet paper.  And while I took issue with a couple of self serving aspects (protecting Owen Glenn’s donation) I blogged support for most of the proposals.

Then the Herald got hold of further details such as state funding of parties and extending the 90 day period and I started to go negative.

Then there was nothing for three months as Labour continued with secret negotiations instead of having a public policy process.  They are the only ones to blame for the law being passed a week before Christmas.

And then we saw in July their desire to screw maximum advantage for themselves and the outright incompetence of Mark Burton combined to create the horror known as the original Electoral Finance Bill. And that is why opposition rose up to it.  I certainly was planning to support the Electoral Finance Bill initially, and just seek improvements.  I never imagined it would be so draconian and unprecedented that one could get the Human Rights Commission and the Law Society agreeing it should be thrown out rather than amended.

Anyway since December 2006, I have made a total of 192 posts on the subject of the changes to the Electoral Act.  There are also 26 posts from early 2006 detailing Labour’s corrupt behaviour in the 2005 election where they defied the Chief Electoral Office and over-spent deliberately, bring the category total to 218.  This will be No 219.

The word count is somewhat horrific but I have published over 91,000 words on the Electoral Finance Bill. Now some of that is cut and paste but still a scary amount of words.

But it has been worth it.  Sadly the bill is about to pass, but those who support it have suffered for it, and hopefully will suffer next year for it.  And also many of the improvements to the EFB are due to the strength of the opposition.

I believe the blogs have played a pretty significant role.  Just one example is the submission of the Human Rights Commission.  This was not picked up by any media outlet as the media traditionally only cover submitters when they appear orally.  It was blogs which went through the 700 or so submissions, started writing about them, and then had the media follow through with stories. 

The same happened with some articles on the bill.  A couple of legal opinions strongly attacking the EFB were scanned in and placed on blogs.  Now these opinions had been public for several days already but not reported.  But once they got published on blogs, the media within hours had stories about them.

So it has been a battle well worth waging, and while today’s third reading marks the end of that battle as a loss for those against the Electoral Finance Bill, there is an old saying about winning a battle and losing the war, and those parties voting for the Electoral Finance Bill may yet discover that.

Bryce Edwards makes the case for less, not more, state intervention in the democratic process.

It is not commonly realised that the US political system is one of the most highly regulated in the western world. Considerable regulations have been developed in order, ostensibly, to ensure a level playing field in elections. Of course, no such level playing field can be created from the huge restrictions on political activity that these state interventions impose.

By contrast, the New Zealand electoral system has historically been relatively laissez faire, with few state impediments to political activity. New Zealand political parties have been generally regarded as private organisations, and hence have had little obligation to report upon their internal affairs. Unfortunately, New Zealand has recently been shifting towards the American system of intense political regulation.

… The 1986 New Zealand Royal Commission on the Electoral System (RCES) anticipated the problems of the state-party relationship: ‘we recognise that there are dangers inherent in excessive State intervention in the democratic process. If taken too far, controls may represent an unjustifiable intrusion on the freedom of individuals, groups, political parties and candidates’ (RCES, 1986: p.185). Arguably, the regulation of politics has now been taken too far in New Zealand. And the consequences are not just a reduction in political liberty, but also many other apparently unintended consequences, including the creation of barriers to new political parties entering Parliament, and a reduction in the ability of the public to participate in politics.

In a perverse way, modern reforms actually exacerbate many of the problems they were intended to solve, as well as creating new problems along the way. Primarily, state intervention simply distorts political behaviour. As elsewhere, the reforms may be well intended but essentially, the cure of political regulation ends up being worse than the disease of financial scandal.

Read the full article.  It’s very good.

This just goes to show what a mess things will be.  The true impact of the Bill will not be how many people get prosecuted, but how many people don’t speak out because they don’t know if doing so will be legal or not.

As Bill English says:

Mr English said under the current law there was a “bright line” at three months before the election and there was nothing in the bill to steer the Electoral Commission towards having a different rule on January 7 than a week before the election.

The bright line gives certainity.  Now advertisers have to face that their advertisements may become illegal on some unspecified date.  Good law is meant to have as little uncertainty as possible.

And this is not the only area of confusion.  The Electoral Commission still has no definition of how the exemption for MPs in their role as MPs is meant to work.  Instead they will have to rely on whatever partisan interpretation Annette King invents during her third reading speech today.  And no one really knows how a Court will interpret this area.

The latest advertisement from John Boscawen is above as an image.  The link below takes you to an 800KB pdf of it.  It ran in the Sunday Star-Times.

Electoral Suicide Bill Ad

Do Labour, the Greens, United Future and NZ First really want to be explaining next year why Tim Shadbolt has gone to jail for sticking up for his constituents in Southland by running advertisement ten months before the election.  Do they think there is any way they can overcome the symbolism of that? Sure there are grounds to disagree about whether the ads he ran in December would infringe, but there is no doubt his ads planned for early next year will run afoul as they will call for the Government to be brought down.

It is no coincidence that those parties supporting the Electoral Finance Bill are well down in the polls.  Now they can gamble that the issue will fade, but that is a very risky gamble.

If she wins a fourth term, Helen Clark’s next move will be to regulate what can and cannot be written in our newspapers or broadcast on our radios and TVs.

Back in the 90s, it was the unions that first became accustomed to running anti-government advertisements.

The teacher unions were prolific. Billboards lampooned ministers while newspaper advertisements said “vote public education”. Mysteriously, these would coincide with Labour prattling on about “privatisation”. Leftist health groups ran similar campaigns.

Even though these campaigns clearly benefited Labour, no action was taken against them by the Bolger government.

…

For the first time, Clark’s government came under the sort of concerted attack that National governments had always tolerated. Clark was determined that such criticism not be allowed to happen again.

Clark’s answer was the Electoral Finance Bill, written secretly by Cullen and Labour’s election strategist, Pete Hodgson, specifically to silence dissent. They took the most draconian parts of Canadian law and merged them with the most draconian parts of British law to create a monstrosity unknown in any genuine democracy.

While the initial draft of the legislation was an outrageous attack on free speech, the revised version is arguably worse in that it recklessly risks next year’s election being decided by the courts. Every newspaper in the country, whether left- or right-leaning, has condemned the bill and the government that dreamed it up.

Media criticism of the government is likely to only get worse next year. The extraordinary arrogance and unpleasantness of key ministers, combined with clear failure across a range of policy areas, including health, mean that Labour is likely to face a media next year that is more sceptical of Clark, and perhaps even hostile, than any she has experienced before.

If she wins, Clark will be more determined that such criticism never be allowed to happen again.

The same arguments used to suppress criticism by paid advertising will be used to suppress criticism by the media. We will be told the media has been guilty of trying to influence public opinion “unduly”, whatever that means. Criticism of the government will be called “attack journalism” by “right-wing hacks”. It will be necessary to take “a closer look” at what is written and broadcast to stop the media “rorting” the next election.

Now you might think that this is all silly, that the Government would never try to control what the media can say. Well look at these warning signs:

Already, the threats have begun. Last year, Clark slammed this newspaper for giving me “endless column space”. This week, she broadened her attack to the media generally. Her foreign affairs minister, Winston Peters, has threatened darkly that he has news for the media, and “it’s all bad”. My colleague Chris Trotter, New Zealand’s most reliable harbinger of emerging leftist thought, says media policy has been a “sleeping dog” of this administration. He warned the media this week to “think long and hard before kicking them into snarling wakefulness” by editorialising against Labour.

It is difficult to believe that Clark, a former social democrat, would take us down this road. But, then again, it is difficult to believe how far she has already travelled. She is not taking us to North Korea, but she is heading to Singapore, where free speech and a free media are tolerated as long as they support the objectives of the ruling party, and where dissent is OK as long as no one hears it.

This gets pretty close to it.  Clark sees criticism of her and her Government as criticism of New Zealand.  Anyone who criticises her must have disloyal motives. They must be in the pay of wealthy or foreign interests, it is concluded.

Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt plans to spend $300,000 on an anti-government advertising campaign opposing the cuts, which he says will see an estimated $24m wiped out of the Southland economy each year.

He plans to use the slogan “Bring down the government” in a second series of newspaper advertisements to run next month.

The ads are likely to fall foul of the new Electoral Finance Act, which is expected to be passed into law on Tuesday. The new law will stop third parties from spending more than $120,000 on political advertising during an election year.

If Shadbolt is convicted, he will automatically lose his job as Mayor. Those planning to vote for the Electoral Finance Bill on Tuesday should reflect on whether they want to be associated with the electoral consequences of having a popular Mayor forced out of office due to him standing up for his local constituents against the central Government.

Spending $300,000 to fight a decision which will cost your community over $20 million is a very logical thing to do. And this is not a big wealthy person funding this – it is a democratic body on behalf of its 50,000 residents. It is stopping the Council from spending $6 per resident to fight a decision which affects their community.

And don’t anyone imagine that the Council’s action will not be near universally supported. They are fanatically passionate about the SIT in Invercargill and 95% of the population there will be cheering the Council on.

The Electoral Finance Bill may become the tombstone for those parties who support it.  I’ll leave the final words to former Labour Prime Minister Mike Moore:

The former Labour Prime Minister has today labelled the piece of legislation as fatally flawed. He says the restrictions in the electoral finance law, promised by the Government to be passed next week in Parliament, are without precedent in the free world.

Mike Moore says the bill is wrong in principle and in substance and will end up doing the opposite of what its authors expected.

Electoral Reform

Electoral reform will be determined by the electors. The Government’s duty will be to ensure the fair representation of all views and the holding of appropriate referenda.

So consider this:

1. The public had no notice before the last election of electoral law changes
2. NZ First negotiated in secret with Labour on electoral law changes
3. There was no public policy process to allow policy to be set on which the law was based
4. Opinion polls (Colmar Brunton) have shown the majority against further third party restrictions
5. The Human Rights Commission called for a second round of public submissions, which NZ First ignored
6. The public will be restrained from criticising those who voted for the law, by the law.

So is that what NZ First calls having electoral reform determined by the electors?

Mr Shadbolt said a proposed $8 million cut for the institute would lead to a loss of 1400 students and be bad for the region.

“This is a direct attack on everything we’ve done and everything we’ve achieved in the last five years and we’re not going to stop on Friday and say, ‘Oh well, that’s the end of it’,” he told Radio New Zealand.

“There’s an election coming up and we’ll be doing everything we possibly can. We’re going to launch a campaign to bring down this Government if they are going to launch a campaign to bring down our province.”

Except sadly for Tim and Invercargill, their campaign will be limited to $120,000.

… under a deal understood to have been worked out by MPs late tonight, there will be a break in the urgency motion for the Electoral Finance Bill to be debated for the last time tomorrow [now today].

When it has been passed, urgency will resume and the remaining bills dealt with. After that the adjournment debate will be held.

The arrangement will allow Parliament to adjourn for the long summer recess late tomorrow, avoiding having to come back after the weekend. Friday is not a sitting day.

I would expect the Governor-General to give royal assent to it on Friday, at which stage it will come into law. The regulated period will start on 1 January 2008, but the new laws around donations etc will come into force on the day royal assent is given.

UPDATE: It turns out there was no deal, and the House remains in urgency. When the bills put to urgency are finished with (might be today even) the House will rise and resume on Tuesday. I would expect question time from 2 – 3.30 or so, EFB third reading from 3.30 – 5.30 and then after the dinner break the adjournment debate.

UPDATE2: Have just had confirmed there never was any deal at all, that the media stories came from talk at the press gallery party last night. In fact as I understand it, the position of the leadership is that they are quite happy to still be debating the Electoral Finance Bill on Christmas Eve, and will not be making any deals to help the Government get it through quicker! I think it is great National have managed to succeed in not having the third reading until the week before Christmas.  If you’re not willing to give up some of your Xmas shopping time to fight a bill like this, then you don’t deserve Xmas! So well done Nats.

Party activist and executive member Ralph Maxwell said the executive comprised about 18 people. There was one abstention and one vote against the resolution. He said the bill was not supported within the party and that the caucus was supporting it because it would help their own survival.

Mr Maxwell may be wrong on one aspect.  The caucus support for the Electoral Finance Bill may in fact harm their chances of surviving the next election.