Kiwiblog

One of the opponents of the Electoral Finance Act died yesterday – Grey Power President Graham Stairmand. My condolences to those who knew him – I had not had the pleasure.

On the same day a dedicated group of around 40 anti EFA protesters led by John Boscawen protested outside the venue for Helen Clark’s post-budget speech. Not PC has photos.

Neither of these are reasons why the EFA should be repealed. The ultimate proof of the stupidity and far reaching effects of the Electoral Finance Act comes in this story by Audrey Young.

All references to a “Labour-led Government” were deleted from the Government’s press releases on the Budget for fear of breaching the Electoral Finance Act.

People laughed and jeered at me when I said that the law was so bad it even included press releases, but it does. It is the height of stupidity that one can not even refer to the name of the major party in power in a press release.

Labour should just admit they fucked up, and it is a stupid law. It is probably going to stop their biggest ally from running the campaign they want, and it stops them even mentioning their party’s name in press releases.

“We were advised that the use of the term ‘Labour-led’ in the Government releases could be seen as coming under the Electoral Finance Act and obviously that would not be appropriate because they were Government publications, not Labour Party publications.”

That is a quote from Michael Cullen. Bet he would like to give Mark Burton and Annette King the bash.

It believed the term could be seen as promoting Labour and could therefore meet the new definition of election advertisement under the act.

That would have meant that the material should have been authorised by Labour’s general secretary and financial agent, Mike Smith, and possible prosecution of the Secretary of Treasury, John Whitehead, because Government departments are banned from publishing election advertisements.

Indeed.

Dr Cullen’s own Budget speech contained the term twice but he said he had received advice that because it was a speech in Parliament, parliamentary privilege applied.

It gets even more insane. If it were not for parliamentary privilege, then speeches in Parliament might be illegal election advertisements.

I’m serious. It is time to repeal the law. If it is not repealed before the election there will be court cases galore. Electorate MPs will be fighting off electoral petitions for months and months. By-elections may change the result of the election.

Some may claim that no one thought the law would end up being this far reaching. That is not true. There were warnings and warnings. Submissions were made. Protests were organised. It was all predictable. The Government even gave up trying to defend it and retreated behind their “law of common sense”.

Someone should go ask Annette King how common sense required budget press releases to not mention the name of the major party in Government. You can mention it in 2009 and 2010 but not in 2008 or 2011 as they are election years. You could not get more absurd.

If they will not repeal the law, a compromise would be to return the regulated period to 90 days. This would allow MPs to actually mention the name of their party in press releases for most of the year!

The good folk at Fairfax have informed me that there was no change to their poll on Stuff as I blogged yesterday, and no complaint from the 9th floor. I was confused ((c) Mike Williams) between a poll on the main Stuff site and a poll on The Press site. Now The Press’ site is part of Stuff with the same look and feel but it is editorially independent.

So both polls were on Labour Leadership. I saw one which merely had Goff vs Clark (The Stuff one) and then the other one which had references to this being hypothethical (the Press one) and did not realise they were different polls, and assumed it was the one poll which had been changed.

So my stuff up, but in my defence it can be confusing. Look at the front page of Stuff today and their poll is “Did Michael Cullen’s tax cuts meet your expectations?” with a “Yes” and “No” option. Then go to The Press front page and their poll is “Hooray – tax cuts are here. But is Finance Minister Michael Cullen’s generosity enough” with options of “Yes”, “No” and “I didn’t want a tax cut anyway. I’ll send it back.” They are asking (again) similar questions but in a slightly different way.

Fot those interested the Stuff poll had:

Goff 4,398 56.2%
Clark 3,433 43.8%

And The Press had in relation to would Goff be a good sucessor:

Yes 1,510 75.4%
No 316 15.8%
Your hypothetical question is not welcome 177 8.8%

I’ve amended the original post to make it clear it was wrong.

You think NZ hospitals have a problem with medical errors. Have pity for this German woman. Fox News reports:

A German retiree is taking a hospital to court after she went in for a leg operation and got a new anus instead, the Daily Telegraph is reporting.

The woman woke up to find she had been mixed up with another patient suffering from incontinence who was to have surgery on her sphincter.

What can one say.

Hat Tip: Scott Adams

My God. The January Crown Accounts had a $600 million error in them. IRD failed to update the provisional tax take, which is why tax revenue was around $700 million below forecast.

Vernon Small blogs that Cullen is furious. I would be also. This is not a minor error. And the fact that the tax figures were below forecast for the first time ever, is all the more reason why it should have been triple-checked.