Kiwiblog

Graeme Edgeler at Public Address blogs:

If these count as donations (and both Labour, and the Electoral Commission appear to accept they do), then each of the sums above created a separate obligation of disclosure, with 10 working days allowed after each to declare it. The failure to do so within that time period, on each of the four occasions is (unless the Party Secretary has a “reasonable excuse”) a separate offence, carrying a maximum fine of $40,000.

So what about the reasonable excuse? Labour claims it was unsure whether or not a bequest counts as a donation. Edgeler points out:

So I do not consider this is as clear as others believe. However, despite my doubts, I have no sympathy for the Labour Party.

I simply cannot accept “confusion” as an explanation. Being confused about this means you received the money and thought about it whether it had to be disclosed, and just couldn’t make up your mind for certain either way. In a situation like this, if you think you may have a legal obligation to do something, and are confused, the thing you do is check. If the reason the two Labour Party Secretaries involved (Chris Flatt at the time of the first three payments, and Tim Barnett at the time of the last payment) didn’t declare these payments as donations was because they were “confused” about whether it was required then what they’ve realised that what they’re (not) doing may be an offence, but have chosen to run the risk.

I call bullshit on the claim they were confused. If you are confused, then you seek advice. Graeme’s advice would have been:

I am happy to provide you with a legal opinion if you really want, but why do you care? Just file a disclosure anyway, and save yourself some money. At the very least, just call up the Electoral Commission and ask. If they say you a bequest doesn’t count as a donation, then don’t file a return, but otherwise, what’s the harm? 

All Labour had to do was e-mail the Electoral Commission and ask them.

Newstalk ZB’s Felix Marwick apparently has confirmation that the Electoral Commission won’t be referring these matters to the Police, which has disappointed a number of people. There is nothing to stop individuals laying complaints with the police, and I suspect a number will, although it seems unlikely police will pursue charges.

Someone should complain to the Police, and if the Police don’t act, then a private prosecution sounds a good idea.

I don’t know the reasons for the Commission’s decision, but the view that it would be wrong to hold an individual responsible for whatever failure happened in this case (when it may have been someone else’s fault) may factor. This possibility shows, I think, one of the flaws in our electoral law. For something like this, there will often be no reason to sheet responsibility to an individual for a failure like this. The law should allow political parties to be charged directly, not sheet home responsibility only to party secretaries.

I agree, it should be Labour facing a fine, not their former or current general secretaries.

The Electoral Commission has published the 2012 donation returns from registered political parties. They appear to reveal a major breach of electoral law by the Labour Party.

Donations over $15,000 only have to be disclosed annually, but donations over $30,000 must be disclosed within 10 working days of receipt.

Labour’s return shows they received $430,259.33 from the estate of Brian Dalley (ironically a professional property investor who made his riches from capital gains) between April and July 2012. They were required to disclose this to the Electoral Commission within 10 working days, but the Commissions say they were only notified on 9 May 2013. Their disclosure is 12 months late.

Unless there is an incredibly good reason for this, I presume the Electoral Commission will ask the Police to prosecute Labour. Not only does their Leader forget a massive US bank account for four years, the party fails to disclose a $430,000 donation for 12 months.

Other donations declared are:

• ACT – John Boscawen $24,000
• Conservative – Colin Craig $1,618,600
• Social Credit – Murray Gouk estate $25,000
• Greens – various MPs totalling $233,487
• National – Chris Parkin $16,850
• National – James Crisp Ltd $17,850
• National – Roncon Pacific Hotel Mgmt $22,000
• National – Scholar Hotel $24,000
• National – Graeme Douglas $25,000
• National – Cyril Smith $29,950

Also of interest is the disclosure of the total amount of donations received under $15,000 in brackets.

For donations between $1,500 and $5,000 National received a total of $255,000 and Labour $27,000. However for d0nations between $5,000 and $15,000 National had $380,000 and Labour $240,000. So Labour gets most of its money from large donors while National receives a fair amount from moderate sized donors (below $5,000).

UPDATE: According to Felix Marwick of NewstalkZB, the Electoral Commission have decided to take no action. I’m staggered.

Can you imagine what would have happened if National failed to disclose a $430,000 donation from a property developer for 13 months. It would be the lead item on the TV news, with opposition parties demanding the PM front up over the issue.

We live in a country where almost no electoral law transgression has been prosecuted in the last 10 years. It’s outrageous.

Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples has defended his connection to the head of collapsed construction company Mainzeal after their relationship was criticised in Parliament. …

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has repeatedly questioned the relationship between the Government and Mainzeal since the company went into receivership last week, threatening 200 jobs.

He believed the Government knew of the firm’s difficulties but continued to give it lucrative contracts in rebuilding Christchurch. Yesterday, he highlighted Dr Sharples’ relationship with Richina Pacific chief Richard Yan, whose company owned Mainzeal.

Dr Sharples took a $10,000 donation from Mr Yan before the 2011 election, and has been a strong supporter of the Chinese-born businessman’s proposal to build New Zealand House in Shanghai.

Mr Peters said these actions raised serious questions about the integrity of government negotiations. “This is another example of big business influencing government decisions behind closed doors.”

Excuse me while I vomit. How can anyone seriously report anything Peters says about integrity and donations. Sharples reported the donation from Mainzeal, and as far as I know the Minister of Maori Affairs has no role in allocating construction contracts in Christchurch.

Compare that to Winston Peters who took hundreds of thousands of dollars from racing companies, never declared them despite being legally required to, and pushed policy highly favourable to them through Cabinet – again never having disclosed the donations both NZ First receive and he himself personally (they paid for his damages to Bob Clarkson).

And of course the Owen Glenn case where he arranged for a $100,000 donation to his lawyer to cover his legal fees, lied dozens of times over many months about the existence of the donation, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs tried constantly to gain a diplomatic appointment for Sir Owen.

The conduct of Winston Peters is the classic example of big business influencing government decisions behind closed doors. He and his party failed to disclose donations, he lied about them, and he actually advocated policies and decisions beneficial to his donors without ever disclosing the donations.

This is in stark contrast to Sharples who both disclosed the donation, and as far as I know has had no role at all in decisions affecting them.

The hypocrisy is monumental. This is like Richard Prosser calling for religious tolerance.

Andrew Geddis blogs on the Clayton Cosgrove issue at Pundit:

First of all, no-one is accusing Cosgrove of accepting a bribe from Independent Fisheries – at least, they are not doing so out loud. Both Cosgrove and the company adamently deny there was any connection between his introduction of a members bill that would financially help the company (as well as a number of other constituents) and its later decision to donate money to his campaign. Not only is this most probably true in fact, the dual denial means that there is no way of proving it to be false.

Personally I don’t think that there was a pre-condition on the donation.

Second, Cosgrove quite rightly declared the $17,500 in donations to the Electoral Commission – from which we all then were able to find out about the relationship a couple of months ago. True, this action tells against any corrupt relationship existing in fact; you’d have to be a pretty silly (or incredibly brazen) person to openly tell the world that you’ve accepted a chunk of money which was paid to you in exchange for trying to get a change in the law. But the point of declaring donations is to let us make those sorts of judgments about what may or may not have been the motives on each side – if we were to say that simply declaring a donation automatically means that, ipso facto, there cannot be a corrupt intent behind it, then that would have a rather perverting effect on the disclosure regime!

Exactly – this is why we have transparency – so people can judge for themselves if they think there is a connection between donations and (for example) specific policies or acts.

Which brings us once again to the third level of protection. What does the decision to accept a considerable donation from a long-term friend whom you have, in your official capacity as an MP, taken steps to help in a quite significant fashion say about Cosgrove’s internal sense of political morality? By this I mean, what does it say about his ability to scrutinise not only his own motives for taking the money, but also understand how taking that money would look to others? And here I mean not those political enemies who would like to see him taken down, but rather the “average voter” who is assessing the behaviour of her or his political masters? Is it a “good look” to them for an MP to be in this sort of relationship, even if all involve protest the purist of motives?

This is the point I made yesterday. Wise MPs do not lobby on behalf of mates, do not push private legislation that provides significant financial benefits to their mates, and do not then accept large donations from a mate whose financial interests would have benefited from your advocacy.

One last point. I note that Cosgrove is alleging that this story has been “shopped around” by Gerry Brownlee in an effort to distract from a court case being brought by Independent Fisheries against his use of CERA powers to rezone their land. That may well be true. And that case also may well reveal what some of us said from the outset – giving Brownlee or any other Minister extensive powers to override existing property rights and legal processes in order to “help Canterbury” carries considerable risks of their misuse.

However, the motives for drawing attention to Cosgrove’s relationship with Independent Fisheries do not touch on its basic rightness or wrongness. Or, to put it another way, the problem isn’t so much that people are noticing the donation to Cosgrove, but rather that the donation was given and accepted in the first place.

It shows how defensive Cosgrove is on this issue, that he is trying to shift attention by alleging that the story has been shopped around by National. The Nation have confirmed that they have had no contact with Gerry Brownlee’s office on this, and the first I know what the story was about was watching The Nation.

The ironic thing is there is an MP who is known to do smear campaigns about donations – even when there haven’t been any. That MP may be behind this “smear campaign” also. It is a Mr Clayton Cosgrove. Back in June 2008 he said:

On June 3, Mr Cosgrove received a letter from a member of the Institute which indicates that deals have been done between some senior industry members and the National Party to wind back this consumer protection legislation. “The letter said the REINZ president Murray Cleland recently told members at a regional AGM that if the National Party won the election it is likely to change the legislation to suit the Institute,” he said.

Mr Cosgrove said this raises serious questions over what deals have been done. “The National Party has confirmed it has met with REINZ representatives so now it needs to come clean on when this happened, who was present and what promises were made. National should tell us if any election campaign funds have been solicited or received by the Party, its MPs and/or its candidate, and whether any contributions have been made by REINZ and/or its member companies,” he said.

So when National advocated something, Clayton went out there and effectively alleged they were doing it due to donations from REINZ or its members (something that in fact was not true – he just made it up, and posed it as a question), while in this case the donation is a matter of record.

But to get this clear, the media asking Clayton questions about a donation from a property company which would have received huge financial benefits from legislation he proposed is a smear campaign, but him alleging National is in the pocket of the real estate industry (whom did not donate to National) is not a smear campaign. It is only wrong if it is not Labour doing it.

The Nation had Clayton Cosgrove on this morning, with the news summary being:

Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove says he is a long standing friend of a property developer who donated $17,500 to his campaign at the last election.

The donation came after Mr Cosgrove drafted a private members’ bill which would have allowed the developer, Mike Dormer, to go ahead with a development stopped by the Christchurch District Plan.

Speaking today on TV3’s “The Nation”, Mr Cosgrove said, he was a longstanding friend of Mr Dormer.

“We go back about 12 years,” he said. 

“He’s a friend of my family, I know his family well. 

“He’s a respected person, I’m proud to say I’m a mate of his.”

In 2008 Mr Dormer’s company, Independent Fisheries, bought 22ha of land at Styx Mill, north of Christchurch Airport and in Mr Cosgrove’s then electorate of Waimakiriri with the intention of developing it for houses.

But the company became frustrated at restrictions on the development imposed at the behest of Christchurch Airport.

Other landowners in the same area were also concerned at the tight noise boundaries around the airport which prohibited residential development.

In June 2009 Mr Cosgrove convened a public meeting about the boundaries and announced that he was preparing a private members’ bill to counter them.

His Bill would have required landowners within the noise boundaries to forfeit any right to object to airport noise. In return residential development would get a go ahead.

Mr Dormer described the bill as “win win” and “outstanding”.

And five months later, in November 2009, Independent Fisheries donated $2500 to

 I had discussion with all landowners.  We set up a group of landowners across the board who had legal support, some who didn’t.  I was leading negotiations on behalf of over a 100 constituents with the International Airport and others, for years on this.

After the Christchurch earthquake in September 2010, Mr Cosgrove withdrew his bill from the private members’ list of bills in Parliament.

In June 2011, Mr Cosgrove got another donation from Independent Fisheries. This time it was for $15,000, making a total of $17,500, one of the highest sums given to any individual MP at the last election.

And in August 2011, Mr Cosgrove issued a press release advocating passage of his Bill as a way of freeing up land for desperately needed sections in Christchurch.

But he vigorously denied that there was any connection between the Bill and its obvious benefits for Independent Fisheries Ltd and the donations.

“I’ve never accepted a donation with any preconditions and I have never been offered a donation with any   preconditions,” he said.

Mr Cosgrove rejected the suggestion that it could appear that he had a conflict of interest.

There would have been a conflict of interest from any person, and I have people donate money to me in support from all political persuasions.” he said.

“There would be a conflict of interest if it came with preconditions, and by the way every MP receives donations. 

“There would be a very bad look and a lack of judgement if those donations were hidden and not declared. 

“There is transparency here, and the reason you can question me is because I declared them.”

Mr Cosgrove claimed the report on “The Nation” had been “shopped around” by Earthquake Recovery Minister, Gerry Brownlee, in an attempt to smear him.

But Nation presenter, Rachel Smalley, said that no one from Front Page, the production company which produces “The Nation” had spoken to Mr Brownlee or anyone from his office.

Independent Fisheries is one a number of parties who have a legal action against Mr Brownlee on this issue currently before the High Court in Christchurch. 

I have included the transcript of the show after the break, so people can see it in context.

I would make four observations.

1. I accept absolutely that there were no conditions attached to the $17,500 donation (in two parts). I also accept that Cosgrove genuinely sees the change he advocated as desirable. Just to be absolutely clear I do not believe this was a case of “purchasing policy”.
2. I do think it is somewhat inappropriate for an MP to promote legislation via the member’ ballot which would allow developments, not allowed under a local authority plan.
3. I think it is unwise of any MP, including Cosgrove, to lobby for something that is of huge financial benefit to someone he describes as a long-standing friend.
4. Accepting such a large donation from someone whose interests you have promoted legislation for, is also unwise. $17,500 is ten times the disclosure level for candidates and represents over half the $25,000 you can spend on a campaign during the regulated period.  Donations should be based on general support for a party’s policies, or belief that a candidate is the best local representative. When the MP has advocated a law change that your company is the biggest beneficiary of, then I don’t think it is a great idea to donate.

The full transcript is below.

(more…)

Claire Trevett at NZ Herald reports:

Conservative Party leader Colin Craig loaned $1.9 million to his party for its election expenses, but this month wrote off $1.6 million of that loan as a donation.

A $1.6 million donation was disclosed to the Electoral Commission on May 18 under the law requiring donations of more than $30,000 to be declared within 20 working days.

The party’s election return was also filed with the Electoral Commission on May 18 – about two months late – and it listed no donations over the disclosure threshold of $15,000 and only $11,791.50 in smaller sums.

There are numerous issues here, which may have some legal consequences. For a start one could dispute whether the loan was even a loan, when there was obviously no capacity to repay. So the first issue is was it a genuine loan, or should it always have been treated and disclosed as a donation.

The second issue is the interest on the loan. Let’s start with what the Electoral Act says on interest free loans. S207 defines a party donation as including:

where credit is provided to a party on terms and conditions substantially more favourable than the commercial terms and conditions prevailing at the time for the same or similar credit, the value to the party of those more favourable terms and conditions

So how big is the value of a $1.9m interest free loan?

Mr Craig said his company, Centurion Management, had paid the bills for the Conservatives’ campaign totalling $1.55 million during 2011, and subsequently billed the party for the amount.

We’ll come back to the legality of having a company pay bill on behalf of a political party.

The auditor’s report with the donation return said it was possible that Mr Craig’s $1.6 million should be listed in the donation return for election year – rather than now – if it was deemed to be a donation on the date the bills were originally paid by way of a loan, rather than the date the debt was forgiven.

And if it was a donation at the time the bills were paid, it was not disclosed when it was meant to.

Mr Craig said the party had treated the bill payments by Centurion on its behalf as credit on favourable grounds and declared interest on that at a rate of 12 per cent, which totalled a $10,590.50 donation in its return.

This is where the numbers do not add up. An annual interest rate of 12% is equal to a daily rate of 0.033%. Which means from the day the $1.6m bills were paid, daily interest of $526 is accrued.

Now if over $15,000 of interest was accrued before 31 December 2011, then a donation should have been disclosed in their donation return. This means that if the bills were paid before 3 December 2011, then the Conservatives have failed to disclose the donation in their annual return. The Electoral Commission needs to determine when bills were actually paid, to determine this.

However the larger problem may be the requirement to immediately disclose any donation over $30,000. Once that $1.6m had been paid for more than 57 days, then it needed to be disclosed. Now the overall donation was disclosed on 17 May 2012. S210C(6) states:

A return must be filed under subsection (1) or (2) within 10 working days of the donation being received by the party secretary.

This means that if the value of the foregone interest exceeded $30,000 by 03 May 2012, then it should have been disclosed before 17 May 2012. Now when is the latest the expenses should have been paid. S206E states:

A claim that is sent to the party secretary in accordance with subsection (1) must be paid within 40 working days after the day on which the declaration required by section 193(5) is made.

The declaration referred to is the declaration of election results. This was on 17 December 2012. So the bills must be paid within 40 working days. But a working day excludes any days between 25 December and 15 January. So 40 working days after 17 December is the 5th of March. This is the last possible day the advertising bills were paid. Personally I would be surprised if they were not paid in December, as people get grumpy if not paid.

The interest that would accrue between the 5th of March and the 3rd of May is $31,000 approx. So even under the most favourable legal timings I would say they also breached the continuous disclosure rule.

But on top of this we have the murky fact that the bills were paid by Centurion Management. One can either treat Centurion as an agent of the party, or as an outside entity. If it was an outside entity, then Centurion should have billed the Conservatives by the 5th of February and been paid by the 5th of March. It appears they were not paid until the mid May, when Craig repaid them. So that arrangement is also legally suspect.

If they were acting as an agent of the Conservatives (like an ad agency would), well was this documented. Of importance is that Centurion is not the private company of Colin Craig. He owns 55% and his wife 40%, but 5% is owned by a Stephen and Sarah Plummer.  Mr Plummer is a director. Did the Board formally approve the use of Centurion to act on behalf of the Conservatives and pay all their bills for them?

So I’d say there are a huge number of issues for the Electoral Commission to gets its head around. At a minimum they need details of when actual bills were paid, and then calculate foregone interest from those dates.

It is worth noting that Craig was open about the fact he was bankrolling the campaign for the party he leads. However that doesn’t mean one can ignore the rules. What Colin Craig should have done is set up a bank account for the Conservatives from the moment it was registered, donated the money to them upfront, and then have the party pays bill directly and disclose his donation within 10 working days. The way he has gone about it, has not been clean. Private companies should not be paying bills on behalf a registered political parties, and the loan should have been treated as a donation from the start as there was never any possibility of significant repayment.

It will be interesting to see what the Electoral Commission determines.

The 2011 party donation returns are now online. This is the first time that the returns have not just included details of individual donations over the disclosure limit – but also summary information on their total level of income from donations. This gives us a fuller picture of their revenues.

I’ve broken down for the major parties, their donations by size:

National and Labour have similar profiles (but National got 2.5 times as much).  Note that these figures do not include the income from donations below $1,500 and membership fees etc. For National that can be greater than a million dollars a year.

Significant Donors are (those over $30,000 were declared last year):

ACT

1. Louis Crimp $125,520
2. Alan Gibbs $116,000
3. John Boscawen $79,468
4. John Banks 75,980 (includes through a company)
5. Don Brash $25,980
6. John Harrison $25,025
7. Fletcher Building $20,000
8. Talleys $20,000

Maori

1. Bruce Piested $25,000
2. Fletcher Construction $20,000

Labour

1. Todd Corp $50,000
2. EPMU $40,000
3. Cao Jun $30,000
4. Dairy Workers Union $27,200
5. Road Transport Trust $20,000
6. Fletcher Building $20,000
7. SFWU $20,000
8. Meatworkers Union $18,000

Greens

1. Fletcher Building $20,000
2. Seven Green MPs – $15,000 to $17,500 each
3. Christoper Marshall $16,500
4. Bryan Forde $15,200
5. Forbes Elworthy $15,035

National

1. Susan Chou $100,000
2. Gallagher Group $86,005
3. Antoines Restaurant $60,000
4. Oravida 56,600
5. Chris Parkin $55,000
6. Todd Corp $50,000
7. Citi Financial Group $50,000
8. Team McMillan $35,000
9. Graeme Douglas $30,000
10. Road Transport Trust $30,000
11. Garth Barfoot $22,000
12. Contue Jinwan Enterprise Group $21,600
13. The 123 Mart Ltd $20,000
14. Fletcher Building $20,000
15. Xiao Miao Fan $19,413
16. Janette Brocklehurst $16,685
17. Grant Biel $15,500
18. Yaxun Zhang $15,113

Today’s Herald editorial is rather confused. They mix up the Local Electoral Act and Electoral Act, and also do not know how MMP works with by-elections.

Anonymous donations should not be permitted at all but they have been allowed under strict conditions because political parties say few wealthy or corporate donors would contribute if their names had to be made public.

Anonymous donations are basically not permitted under the Electoral Act, unless they are of relatively small amounts (under $1,500), or are done through the Electoral Commission with strict declarations. However the Local Electoral Act is very very different and does have any strict conditions at all. They have in fact no conditions, except a badly worded definition of an anonymous donation.

This case warrants a reconsideration of campaign finance law to require the naming of all contributors of more than $1000 to a candidate or party. 

Again the Herald seems confused – are they talking the Electoral Act or the Local Electoral Act or both? The reference to parties suggest the Electoral Act.

Again the Electoral Act already bans anonymous donations of greater than $1,500. And candidates must disclose the names of all donors of over $1,500, while parties must disclose donors of over $15,000 (which is a sum which represents around 0.5% of a major party’s revenue).

The Local Electoral Act has no ban at all on anonymous donations, but requires disclosure of donations of over $1,000 already.

His departure would create a byelection in Epsom that National would need Act to win if the Government was to retain its majority.

Totally incorrect. If National won the by-election they would go from 59 to 60 seats in the House and with United Future would have a majority.

Claire Trevett at NZ Herald reports:

Donations towards MPs’ election campaigns came from diverse sources, ranging from artists to fisheries companies and Australian unions and some disclosed donations well in excess of the $25,000 spending limit.

This is  because the $25,000 spending limit only covers advertising expenses, and also is for the last three months only. The total cost of an electorate campaign is usually in excess of this.

In the three months before an election, candidates can spend up to $25,000. However, there are no limits on spending on election material before that.

And again only certain types of expenditure counts towards the limit.

Labour MP Andrew Little’s disclosure of $29,975 in donations included $2500 from Crafar Farms receiver Michael Stiassny, who is a partner at KordaMentha and chairman of the board of Vector. Mr Little said he first met Mr Stiassny when the pair worked on the collapse of Ansett. They had stayed in touch ever since and were “good mates”.

A former EPMU secretary, Mr Little also disclosed two $1500 donations from Australian unions, including the coal miners’ union which he said had been supportive over the Pike River disaster. The maximum donation allowed from overseas donors is $1500. Todd Energy also gave $5000 to Mr Little and his National Party rival in New Plymouth, Jonathan Young.

That is interesting that Andrew and Stiassny are mates. I don’t know Mr Stiassny, but from  various accounts he is not the most popular person in the country – to be fair that sort of goes with being a receiver.

Also interesting the $3,000 from foreign unions to try and help Andrew win New Plymouth.

The returns showed Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye spent almost twice as much as her main rival, Labour’s Jacinda Ardern, on the battle for the seat – but Ms Ardern raked in the big donations. Ms Kaye spent $21,347 on her campaign in the Auckland Central seat while Ms Ardern spent just $11,365.

This is spending attributed to the candidate. It is worth noting That Labour  also spent around $10,500 in advertising in Auckland Central on top of that $11,365 and National spent around $3,000. Generally how it works is that most advertisement ask for both the party and the electorate vote so you can split the cost 50/50 if you want. Labour split most of their ads 50/50 while National did not (as they did not want the electorates spending too much of the party vote budget.

However, Ms Ardern declared $27,295 of donations for her campaign – including artworks for a fundraiser from artists John Reynolds, Greer Twiss and Karl Maughan, worth a combined total of $10,750. Ms Kaye got just $5525 in donations – most of it from National’s central office.

Again some context is needed here. These are not the total level of donations for each candidate. They are merely the total level of donations above the disclosure limit of $1,500. If a candidate received 30 donations of $1,000 each, none of that would be disclosed. One can not know from the Electoral Commission returns, how much money a campaign received.

Also a minor correction. National’s head office does not donate money to electorate campaigns – in fact it is very much the other way around – electorates “donate” considerably to the central campaign. The error would be based on the fact that the address used in the return was the Wellington head office address – but that is because electorates are part of the overall party, and that is the official office address. However almost certainly any donation from the party to a candidate is from the local electorate.

All candidate donations of more than $1500 must be disclosed. The return of donations to political parties is yet to be released. All party donations of more than $15,000 must be disclosed and parties will now also have to disclose the number of donations they received in bands of between $1500 and $5000 and $5000 to $15000.

The party returns will be interesting. Any donation over $30,000 has already been disclosed, but we will get to see the donors between $15,000 and $30,000 plus see the overall level of donations in bands.

Former Labour Party General Secretary Mike Smith blogs:

Donations over $30,000 from the same source must be declared to the Electoral Commission within 10 working days. National overstepped the mark in declaring a total donation of $86,005 from Gallagher Industries outside the limit. I can sympathise as I missed a connection once when I was Labour’s Secretary. These days  the Electoral Commission doesn’t get involved – the penalty is a fine of up to $40,000 on summary conviction.

That’s a very serious accusation. As Mike Smith says, a late return can result in a $40,000 fine. So let’s see if National were late.

The Electoral Commission says that National received $66,705 on 20 December 2001 from the Gallagher Group Ltd. This was on top of an earlier $19,300 so exceeded the $30,000 threshold for reporting within 10 working days.

It was declared on 10 January 2012, 21 days later.

But the Electoral Act refers to working days, as quoted by Mike Smith. S210C(6) says:

A return must be filed under subsection (1) or (2) within 10 working days of the donation being received by the party secretary

Now what is a working day? Well the Electoral Act specifies that in S3:

working day means any day of the week other than—

• (a) Saturday, Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Labour Day, the Sovereign’s birthday, and Waitangi Day; and

• (b) a day in the period commencing with 25 December in any year and ending with 15 January in the following year

The 20th of December was a Tuesday. Friday 23rd December was the third working day and Mon Jan 16th the 4th working day. Tuesday 24 January 2012 is in fact the 10th working day after the 20th of December 2011.

So National made the deadline with a fortnight to spare.

Mike may wish to amend his post.

Claire Trevett in the NZ Herald reports:

WHAT THEY GAVE
(2008 donation in brackets)
* Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union: $40,000 (2008: $60,000)
* Dairy Workers’ Union: $25,000 (2008: $12,000)
* Maritime Union: $18,500 (2008: none disclosed)
* Meat Workers’ Union: $18,000 (2008: $25,500)
* Service and Food Workers’ Union: $15,000 (2008: $20,000)
* FIRST Union (not affiliated): $4000 (2008: nil)

Donations of over $30,000 must be disclosed within 10 days of being made, but those over $15,000 but no greater than $30,000 do not have to be disclosed until the party does its annual return by 30 April 2012.

The unions here have disclosed early in response to inquiries by the Herald, which is commendable.

In total they gave $110,500 of donations above the disclosure threshold in 2011. In 2008 it was $117,500 so not a lot of change.

National’s donations over $30,000 have already been disclosed and commented upon. It will be interesting to see in early May who else donated above $15,000.

Also of interest is a new requirement (proposed by me, amongst others) that for the first time parties have to reveal the number of donations they received below the individual disclosure limit – in bands. This will give us a more holistic look at how parties are funded, and will also be out in May.

NZ Herald reports:

Chinese New Zealand businesses, including one formerly owned by the businessman spearheading Shanghai Pengxin’s bid for the Crafar dairy farms, have boosted the National Party’s coffers by more than $100,000 in recent days.

Recent filings to the Electoral Commission show National received $50,000 on November 22 from Citi Financial Group, a Queen St foreign exchange and financial planning firm owned by Yan Yang and Qiang Wei.

The same day, the party got a $1600 donation from Oravida NZ, which also gave $55,000 on November 30.

Oravida’s directors are Jing Huang, Julia Jiyan Xu and wealthy but reclusive businessman Deyi Shi.

In September last year when it was called Kiwi Dairy, Oravida was bought from Terry Lee, a businessman associated with Shanghai Pengxin, which has applied for Overseas Investment Office approval to buy the Crafar farms.

It is good the disclosure regime is working. Transparency is important and media should report large donations

Turning to the Oravida donation, the key word is former owner. Terry Lee has not owned the company for 14 months, and the new owners have nothing to do with the Crafar farms bid as far as I know. Some people get very excited about former owners, assuming it means they are still in a position of influence with their former company, and/or wanting to advantage them. The prime example of this is how some go on about Steven Joyce being a former owner of the radio stations now owned by Mediaworks. What many do not realise is it was a hostile takeover, and shall we say no love lost there between the former and current owner.

So as far as I know there is no actual link to the Crafar farm bid. Ironically if someone associated with the bid for the Crafar farms did donate a large amount to National, my belief is that it would actually harm their chances as even if the OIO recommended approval, Ministers would be very wary of making a decision that could be perceived as influenced by the donation.

Incidentally what is a Chinese New Zealand business? Both businesses are New Zealand businesses. Oravida has three directors – two of whom live in NZ and one in New York. The ultimate shareholders all appear to be based in New Zealand also. CFG director and shareholders all appear to be New Zealanders also.

There is a difference between a business owned by Chinese living in China and Chinese living in New Zealand. Chinese living in China are foreigners. Chinese living (permanently) in New Zealand are Kiwis.

NewstalkZB reports:

There’s a pledge from New Zealand First ahead of its annual conference that it will follow the rules on disclosing political donations.

The party was forced to correct its donation returns before the last election, revealing gifts which should have been declared.

Returns filed to the Electoral Commission show New Zealand First has lodged nil donations over the past two years.

Party Leader Winston Peters says next year’s contributions will be reported appropriately.

“We will be abiding by the law, as we have always done,” says Mr Peters.

As we have always done? What a blatant lie.

NZ First were never charged or prosecuted – that is correct. But that is because there was a six month (off memory) time limit for charges.

They did not abide by the law. Here is what the Electoral Commission said:

Although the 2007 return was materially false, no offence committed under section 214G(3) or 214G(4) of the Electoral Act 1993 as the Party Secretary had no intention to mis-state or conceal the facts

So the return was false, but no prosecution because only the party secretary can be held liable.

In respect of the 2005 and 2006 returns, the statutory time limit for any prosecution has expired.

And these were not trivial donations unreported. From 2005 to 2007, NZ First declared there had been zero donations over $10,000 when in fact there had been around $235,000 of donations.

And no that doesn’t include the $100,000 Owen Glenn gave to pay Winston’s legal bills. Likewise it does not include the revelation by the SFO that the Velas had also paid Winston’s electoral petition expenses to Bob Clarkson.

Yet Winston still insists they have always abided by the law.

Just checked out the Electoral Commission page for donations above $30,000 (which must be declared within 10 days) and there have been three this year:

• ACT – John Boscawen $52,335
• National – Susan Chou $100,000
• ACT – Louis Crimp $100,520

Boscawen is of course the parliamentary leader of ACT. Chou has donated previously to both National (2010) and Labour (2008) plus to humanitarian causes.

Louis Crimp is an Invercargill businessman, whom I’ve blogged on previously. He stood for ACT in 1996. He also recently donated $1m to St Johns, and other causes:

When Invercargill businessman Louis Crimp had a car crash he was so touched that the St John staff treating him were volunteers he later decided to give the Southland branch $1 million.

He will hand over the cheque today. The massive donation follows a string of monetary and land gifts the philanthropist has made to the community.

In 2007 Mr Crimp paid more than $1m for a city bungalow which had been renovated as a fundraising project for Hospice House in Invercargill, with almost $800,000 of that going to the hospice.

Mr Crimp has given $200,000 to the Southland SPCA since 2008 while, in May, he gifted a residential section formerly owned by the Mongrel Mob to the Habitat for Humanity organisation.

I applaud people willing to donate their money to support policies or parties they believe will be good for New Zealand.

Al registered parties had to file their 2010 donations return with the Electoral Commission by 30 April 2011. The returns won’t be up on the Elections NZ website until next week, but they are open for inspection at their offices so I headed on down today to check them out.

Three parties have not filed returns, and are in breach of the law. The New World Order Party and The Workers Party. Technically also the New Citizen Party, but they onlyregistered in November 2010.

Parties have to disclose any donations over $10,000 (plus overseas and anon donations etc). Nil returns were filed by United Future, ALCP, Libz, Alliance, Kiwi, Democrats and Winston First. Of course we know that a nil return for Winston First can actually mean they’ve had hundreds of thousands of donations.

ACT

One donation of $19,000 from Margaret Alldred, who is also the Party’s Administration Manager.

Progressive

They’ve disclosed $$13,000 from the “Wigram Progressive Party”. This suggests that Jim’s local organisation was not a formal part of the overall party, and he kept the funds close to him locally.

Maori Party

Pita Sharples has donated $19,171.50, in fortnightly payments. Interesting that no other MP has donated over $10,000.

Labour

In addition to the already disclosed $25,120 from former party secretary Mike Smith (donations over $20,000 are disclosed as they are made, and don’t wait just for the annual return), they also had $16,500 from Ann Robinson and $15,100 from Karl Maughan.

I presume Ann Robinson is the glass sculptor of that name, and Karl Maughan the painter. I suspect they did not make a cash donation, but donated art works that were auctioned off for the amounts disclosed.

Greens

All nine MPs had to pay a tithe, which totalled $136,786.64. This is an average per MP of around $15,200.

National

National had total donations of $397,820.50. All but $17,820.50 of this had been previously disclosed (and I had blogged them previously). The $17,820.50 comes from Garth Barfoot, presumably the director of Barfoot & Thompson real estate agents.

These disclosed donations are only of the large ones over $10,000 in value. They may represent a small or large portion of a party’s overall funding. For example National raises around $4m over three years just from relatively small membership donations.

The new electoral finance law passed by National, will have some extra transparency around donations made in 2011 and afterwards. As well as disclosing the individual large donations (those over $15,000), parties will also have to disclose the number and total value of donations from $1,501 to $5,000 and from $5,001 to $15,000. But we will not see these until April 2012.

Auckland Councillor Jami-Lee Ross has stated:

The Mayor of Auckland has been called on by one of his councillors to return a $3,375 campaign donation back to Auckland ratepayers.

The call comes after recent media reports of a donation to Mayor Len Brown from the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust. The charitable trust has been largely funded in the past by Manukau City ratepayers and continues to receive a $385,000 operating grant each year.

Auckland Councillor Jami-Lee Ross has written to Mr Brown saying he has a “moral obligation” to return $3,375 back to ratepayers. “This donation is highly questionable and, in my view, should never have been made. …

Mr Ross says the Trust’s connection to the city’s ratepayers is too close for it to have engaged in actively supporting election campaigns.

“There are very strong arguments that the donation is in effect public money, if not by definition, then by perception. The Trust’s own financial statements note that the Trust is considered a Council Controlled Entity.

“I have no doubt that the ratepayers of Manukau City would not have expected an organisation that has benefited so generously from Manukau City Council to be contributing to the election campaigns of political candidates. …

“Len Brown has a moral obligation to return the $3,375 back to the people that fund the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust. Doing so would be seen as testament to his honesty and integrity,” says Mr Ross.

The multiple links between the trust and the campaign, with an exchange of personnel, a probably illegal donation, and subsequent board appointments need investigating.

Also there is need of a culture change at the new Auckland Council for refusing to make available the donation and expenses return, unless you physically visit them. They won’t even allow journalists to take a photocopy.

This reinforces my view that the Electoral Commission should be placed in charge of all local body elections also. They have a good commitment to transparency.

A lengthy article on political donations by Jenni McManus in the Dom Post:

Corporate donations – once the financial lifeblood of political parties – have slumped significantly since tough new electoral rules were enacted in 2007.

Not necessarily. Donations over the disclosure limit of $10,000 have slumped, but that does not mean total donations have decreased. The law about to be passed by Parliament will shed some light on this, as it will require reporting of total donations in bands, not just those over $10,000.

Labour’s subsequent law change introduced new rules and a $120,000 cap on such third-party spending.

It also laid down a new disclosure regime for individual and corporate donations, and for anonymous and foreign donors.

For New Zealanders, anything above $10,000 had to be disclosed in the party’s annual return. Multiple donations from a single person or entity above $20,000 had to be reported within 10 days of receipt.

The $10,000 disclosure limit predates the EFA. That has been the law for many years.

So what do corporates hope to gain from donations? And what are they promised for their money? Very little, it seems, in a country the size of New Zealand when big payments to political parties confer no right to dictate policy – or even to be part of the policy- making process.

A large party will spend around $5 million in election year. So a $10,000 donation is just 0.2% of total income. This is why I think $10,000 is a good level for disclosure – it is impossible to think of policies being purchased at such a level.

It’s all about influence and access, says one National Party insider. “They think they become a ‘mate’ of the politicians – that they get on the government’s speed-dial. It puffs them up – gives them a vignette into a secret world, makes them feel part of an inner circle.

“But nothing is explicit. It’s a sort of code among the rich that if you give money, John [Key] is more likely to take your call.”

This type of donor is part of a small, select group. “It’s not your factory owner in South Auckland.”

The insider says it is “complete crap” that Kiwi MPs can be bought: “But the business community wants to be heard and [donations] are a way of ensuring this.”

And for many donors, it is supporting a party’s policies, because they think they are good for New Zealand and/or their business.

John Key and his wife are regular diners at Antoine’s, an exclusive Parnell restaurant owned by National Party supporter Tony Astle.

Astle says Antoine’s donated $105,000 in June this year to the Nats because he “hated the Labour government of the past nine years” and had never been slow in coming forward to express this view.

“It almost ruined by business,” he says. “I was very optimistic about the National Party and that’s why I organised a fundraising dinner for them. It was my opportunity to do something.

A damn generous donation.

Susan Chou (also known as Suzhen Zhou), of Bucklands Beach, has emerged as the National Party’s biggest single donor.

What no one has reported is that she has also donated to Labour – $18,000 in May 2008.

The Electoral Commission has also just reported another large donation – $25,000 in late November from Graeme Douglas.

Two more large donations to National have been disclosed to the Electoral Commission.

Suzhen Zhou has donated $150,000. This is on top of an earlier $50,000 donation, so Ms Zhou is now National’s largest donor. Her combined $200,000 matches the $200,000 she gave to aid relief after the 2008  Sichuan earthquake.

Team McMillan in Newmarket have also donated $50,000.

National has just disclosed two over $20,000 donations, as required by law.

Last month Suzhen Zhou of Bucklands Beach donated $50,000 and Antoines Restaurant donated a whopping $105,000.

The Dom Post reports why:

The gift from Parnell’s Antoine’s Restaurant was made in June and disclosed under rules requiring any donations of more than $20,000 to be publicly disclosed within 10 working days of a party receiving them.

Mr Key lives about three blocks away from the restaurant.

Asked the reason for his largesse, restaurant owner Tony Astle said Mr Key was a customer he had known for several years.

“Well, I just love the prime minister. I’ve never really been a person to give money to parties, but I decided this time I would. We need them back again, we don’t need those other pretenders.”

I hope John tips well the next time he dines there!

Ms Zhou and her parter also donated $200,000 to aid relief after the Sichuan earthquake in 2008.

I just noticed on the Elections website that Labour have just declared a donation of $25,000 under the continous disclosure regime.

What is a bit interesting is that it comes from Mike Smith, who stood down last year as their long serving general secretary.

Normally when you retire from a job, the employer gives you a golden handshake. Not often the retiring employee donates $25,000 to their former employer.

It is possible the donation is on behalf of others. The law has a bit of a flaw in it, with a donation over $20,000 having to be declared immediately, but any contributors to the donation only get declared annually. We’ll find out by 30 April 2011 when the 2010 returns are due.

Note I am not suggesting any impropriety on anyone’s part. I’m all in favour of people donating to parties they support.

The Electoral Commission has published the donation returns for 2009 for political parties. Only donations of greater than $10,000 have the identity of the donors disclosed. So who are the parties attracting the major donations?

The party with the largest number of large donors is the Greens, who had $147,462 of large donations. In order they were:

1. Stuart Bramhill $19,500
2. Jeanette Fitzsimons $15,643
3. Metiria Turei $15,307
4. Russel Norman $15,250
5. Keith Locke $14,468
6. Catherine Delahunty $14,428
7. Kevin Hague $13,928
8. Sue Kedgley $13,868
9. Kennedy Graham $13,302
10. Sue Bradford $11,768

Mr Bramhill is a regular large donor to the Greens. I would have to check but think his total donations exceed $100,000 over time.

Next largest was ACT with one $20,000 donation from The Virtual Bucket Ltd. That company is owned by Roger Beattie of Christchurch. Mr Beattie is  well known entrepreneur who wants to farm wekas!

Third was Jim Anderton’s Progressives who banked $15,000 from Juken Nissho Ltd. Their declaration is technically incorrect as there is no company of that name. In 2004 they changed their name to Juken New Zealand Ltd.

It is a large company with $224 million turnover in 2009. They made a $165 million loss, but nice they could spare some money for Jim.

Fourth was the Maori Party, with co-leader Pita Sharples donating $11,142 in fortnightly installments.

Fifth was Labour with Phil Goff donating $10,063. I suspect Labour are still tithing their MPs a proportion of their salaries, and only Goff exceeded the threshold of $10,000.

National did not have any donors give over $10,000 in 2009.

Submissions close at 5 pm Friday on the Government’s proposed electoral finance reform.

I have included below my submission.

I would urge as many people as possible, regardless of your views on political finance, to do a submission. The last Government did not allow you to say what you think the law should be, until after it introduced a bill into Parliament – by which time it is much harder to get changes. You have an opportunity here to have your say and influence policy before Cabinet makes final policy decisions.

This is especially so, in the areas where the Government has not yet indicated a preference, but has put a number of options.

You can e-mail a submission to this address. The Government’s electoral finance reform page is here, and a pdf of the proposal document is here.

If you don’t want a compulsory system of registration and limits for “parallel campaigners”, then make a submission – don’t complain about it later, if you don’t submit.

If you do not want a seven month regulated period, make a submission.

If you think political parties should be able to spend their own money on broadcasting advertisements, then make a submission.

Politicians have vested interests in electoral finance law. Some want state funding. Others want to cut off private funding to their opponents. Many don’t like citizens being able to spend their own money criticising them.

Regardless of your views on the issues, have your say. The more submissions people make, the better. They don’t have to be anywhere near as long as mine. You can just state your opinion on one or two issues such as should there be compulsory registration for parallel campaigners and the length of the regulated period with a paragraph or two backing up each issue.

Submission from David Farrar in response to the Government’s Electoral Finance Reform Proposal Document

Principles

1. The Government proposes that the following principles both guide the development of electoral finance law and be incorporated in the purpose section of the new legislation: clarity, equity, freedom of expression, participation, transparency, accountability, legitimacy.

I support the addition of the new principle of clarity.

I did not see a need for the principles to be incorporated into the Electoral Act itself, but if they are, they should not be relied on as a substitute to clarity in the legislation itself.

State Funding

The Government is consulting on three options for reform of the broadcasting regime in Part 6 of the Broadcasting Act 1989. Under each option, the Government does not propose to change the total amount of funding that was allocated to political parties at the 2008 general election ($3.21 million) or the arrangement where the total amount of funding is set by Parliamentary appropriation.

I would ask the Government to reconsider that the amount of funding be set by Parliamentary appropriation. This would allow a future Government to increase the funding with no public consultation and as part of a Budget which is effectively guaranteed to pass.

I believe the amount of funding should either be set by statute, and then inflation and population adjusted, or be set at a level recommended by the Electoral Commission.

Status quo option – parties can only spend funds on election broadcasting, and can not purchase any broadcasting advertisements with their own money

Moderate reform option – parties can spend funds on any election advertising, and can purchase broadcasting advertisements with their own money

Significant reform option – parties can spend funds on anything they like (including admin), and can purchase broadcasting advertisements with their own money

I strongly support the moderate reform option, specifically both the provision to allow parties to decide what mediums they advertise in, and the provision to allow a party to purchase broadcasting advertisements with their own money.

Taking the latter point first, I believe the current law is an unjustified restriction of access to the airwaves. A minor party gets a far smaller allocation than a major party, and the current law doesn’t allow them to use their own funds to match the major party. This is not a level playing field. The restriction on buying broadcasting advertisements is a legacy of the past, when it was a much more relatively powerful medium.

The current law also prevents a party that forms just before an election, not only missing out on a broadcasting allocation but they also lose the opportunity to have any advertising in broadcast media.

In terms of what the allocated amount can be spent on, I think the moderate reform is sensible. The significant reform option would introduce full taxpayer funding of political parties. This is not something with public support, and nor it is desirable or necessary. Even worst, the fact the allocation is done by parliamentary appropriation, would allow governing parties to easily vote their parties more funding.

The current taxpayer funding is provided to parties specifically for the purpose of communicating with voters at election time. I submit allowing the parties the flexibility of deciding what medium to spend it on, is sensible, so long as it is spent on election advertising.

Finally, in this section I would repeat a point I made in my earlier submission. Parliamentary parties have a huge advantage over parties not currently in Parliament. They receive considerable free media over the electoral cycle, have MPs working to promote them, and benefit from parliamentary staff and parliamentary budgets. It would be desirable to increase the amount of funding available for parties not in Parliament, and decrease the amount of funding for parties in Parliament due to their considerable advantage.

Parliamentary Service funding

The submissions received in response to the issues paper showed that opinions were divided on whether the relationship between Parliamentary Service funding and election advertising needed to be clarified and how this should be achieved.

The Parliamentary Service Commission is considering these issues as part of the process for developing a permanent definition of funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes in the Parliamentary Service Act 2000. In addition, the Speaker of the House has recently convened a cross-party committee that has developed a public disclosure regime for Parliamentary Service funding.

The Government proposes to ensure consistency between the Parliamentary Service Commission‟s work and the work undertaken as part of the electoral finance reform by raising the suggestions made in the submissions with this cross-party committee for further consideration.

I reiterate that the simple solution here is for the Parliamentary Service to not allow expenditure on advertising for MPs or parties during the regulated period.

MPs and incumbent parties already have a huge advantage. They should not be able to spend parliamentary budgets on advertising during the regulated period, and most of all any advertising they do undertake should be counted as an election expense unless it is totally mundane such as electorate office hours.

Private Donations

The Government proposes to retain the regime governing donations to constituency candidates and political parties that was developed as part of the Electoral Finance Act 2007, and now forms part of the Electoral Act 1993.

In my earlier submission, I advocated a number of changes such as repealing the ability to make anonymous donations through the Electoral Commission, lowering the level for anonymous donations to $100, requiring more frequent disclosure, and requiring a party to publish its total income from donations, in bands.

I still regard these changes as desirable.

However I note that the regime introduced in the Electoral Finance Act two years ago has not yet been through a full parliamentary cycle. I am comfortable with the proposal to make no significant changes at this time. After the 2011 election, the donations section of the law should be more fully reviewed to see if further changes are necessary. Many submitters have made the mistake of concluding the regime does not work due to the low level of disclosed donations in 2008. This overlooks that it is likely significant donations were made in 2007, prior to the law change. Only after we have had a full cycle (2009 – 2011) of donation disclosures, will we be well placed to judge what level of changes, if any, are needed.

Campaign Expenditure Limits

The Government proposes to increase the expenditure limits that apply to constituency candidates and political parties (the Government is seeking submissions on the level of expenditure limits that should apply) and that expenditure limits be adjusted every general election to keep pace with inflation through a formula set in legislation.

As previously submitted, the current expenditure limits have not even kept pace with inflation, and are set so low that they actually prevent candidates and parties from effectively communicating to electors.

Ideally I would like the limits to be based on the cost of an effective advertising campaign to 2.5 million adults for parties, and 40,000 adults for candidates. The Electoral Commission asked an ad agency to calculate such things for its advice on the Electoral Finance Bill, so this can easily done. An empirical approach to setting limits is far preferable to just debating numbers without a context of what they can purchase in terms of advertising effectiveness.

I would note that in an electorate campaign you would expect a candidate to be able to do at least two direct mail letters, a couple of unaddressed pamphlets, a series of ads in local newspapers, and 100+ hoardings. I believe a spend of $50,000 to $60,000 (excl GST) in the regulated period is necessary for a new candidate especially to achieve adequate name recognition and profile. A low spending limit protects incumbents.

I support having a formula set in legislation for future increases. I would submit that the formula should take account of both inflation and population growth. Much of today’s marketing is personalized direct mail, and every extra voter is an extra cost.

For electorates, in the absence of detailed empirical research,  I would submit the formula should be $1.20 per adult in the average electorate. The number of adults would be based on number of residents aged 18 or older in the last census, divided by the number of electorates.

So for example the 2006 census had 3,103,360 adults, which spread over 70 electorates is an average of 44,334. At $1.20 this would be a spending limit of $53,200 for the 2011 election.

If population growth remains steady the adult population in the next census would have 3,370,640 adults. If, as is likely, there are 72 electorates that is 46,814 per electorate. In inflation has been 2% a year from, then the limit would go from $1.20 in 2011 to $1.27 in 2014 for a total limit of $59,600.

The national limit of $2.4 million was set in the early 1990s. Since then inflation has been 27% and population growth 14%. Adjusting solely for that would suggest the limit should be a minimum $3.5 million. If one also adds in the maximum allocation given by the Electoral Commission for broadcasting, that suggests a limit of at least $4.6 million for a party (including the broadcasting allocation) contesting all 70 electorates.

If one takes the current formula of $1 million plus x per electorate, and keeps x the same as the electorate limit, this would be $1 million plus $53,200 per electorate (for the party vote) which would be $4,724,000 limit for 2011 – very close to what it would be inflation and population adjusted.

I would then inflation adjust the $1 million, and inflation and population adjust the amount per electorate.

Regulated Campaign Period Options

commencement on writ day (i.e. a likely regulated period of approximately four to five weeks)

commencement on 1 August in the third year of the election cycle (i.e. a likely regulated period of approximately three to four months depending on the date of the election)

commencement on 1 May in the third year of the election cycle (i.e. a likely regulated period of approximately five to six months depending on the date of the election)

retain the status quo where the regulated period commences three months before the date of the election.

I do not support the status quo. This means that no one knows when the regulated period starts, until the election date is announced, which is often after the start of the then retrospective regulated period. Certainty is welcome.

A regulated period commencing writ day has problems also. It gives the incumbent Government a significant advantage as they know in advance when Writ Day will be, and can tailor their spending around this.

The proposal to start on 1 August is supported. It has the benefit of a fixed date, known in advance, but also means a regulated period of around four months which is in keeping with the traditional length.

I do not support a 1 May start date, and would prefer the status quo to this. This would see regulated periods of around seven months and for a three year electoral cycle, this would be over the top – almost 20% of the cycle. It would also mean that the Budget would get caught up in the regulated period, and parties should be able to promote the budget, and respond to the budget, without it being deemed an election expense.

If there is an early or snap election, then the regulated period should start on writ day, to avoid retrospective application of the regulated period.

Election Advertising

I am not responding in detail to this section, as the devil will be in the detail. I am broadly supportive of the intention to exclude as advertisements:

news and comment published or broadcast by the news media
personal correspondence between private individuals,
low cost merchandise,
personal opinions published on the internet, and certain websites

The Government proposes that on every election advertisement promoters are required to disclose their true name and full street address and suburb or locality (not a PO Box number) of either their residential address, or an address at which the promoter can usually be contacted during the day. Promoters are not required to disclose a private home address if they choose not to.

I support the requirement for transparency, and also that a private home address need not be used. I would propose that a name alone is sufficient on advertisements, if the promoter is registered with the Electoral Commission and their full contact details can be accessed on their website. This would encourage more people to become promoters. They can still be contacted for reasons of transparency should people wish, but don’t have to have their address on billboards and pamphlets all over town.

Parallel Campaigning

I do not support the option to have a “proportionate” regulatory scheme for parallel campaigners. Introducing scheme a scheme will be deeply resented by many as MPs restricting the ability of citizens to spend their own money criticizing them.

There is no documented problem to be solved. The case of the Exclusive Brethren in 2005 is not rationale enough. First of all, their spending was largely deemed to be counter-productive. The public, aided, by the media can be trusted to make their own judgements about the appropriateness of a parallel campaign.

Secondly any parallel campaign limits, would not have necessarily prevented the Exclusive Brethren campaign. They could have had all seven spokespersons register and spent say $100,000 each.

Thirdly the experience in the United States of political finance reform, is that more regulated you make it, the more loopholes get exploited and the effects are counter-productive.

Fourthly the existence of any sort of compulsory registration system for people to spend money criticizing the Government, or other parties, can discourage citizens from political involvement. The Electoral Commission itself noted this, when they referred to the chilling effect on political participation from the former Electoral Finance Act.

Finally, any sort of limit could prevent groups with legitimate grievances from pursuing them against the Government, by campaigning against the governing party. Proponents of such regulations always cite the example of the Exclusive Brethren, and they are a group not many in society feel affinity for, so some may conclude they should not be allowed to spend their own money campaigning.

But take another scenario. What if the Crown confiscated land or property rights off an Iwi, as they have done in the past. That Iwi might want to campaign against the party in Government which stole their land or property rights. Do we believe it would be a good thing to prevent an Iwi from campaigning against a party that legislated away its rights?

This situation could fit the Foreshore & Seabed Act. What if an affected Iwi wanted to campaign against the parties that passed the Act? Bad enough, they have their rights legislated away from them, but even worse is they can’t spend their own money campaigning against the parties that did this.

The current debate over an Emissions Trading Scheme could see some Iwi lose hundreds of millions of dollars of value from their lands. I submit it would be wrong to stop an Iwi from campaigning against parties that it believed had destroyed so much of their value.

Advertising by parallel campaigners on radio and television

Currently parallel campaigners are not allowed to purchase advertising on broadcasters. The Government has put forward only two options – to retain the ban, or to allow parallel campaigners to advertise on broadcasters only if they are subject to registration and spending limits.

I do not support either of those options, and would like the Government to reconsider the option of allowing parallel campaigners (many also known as citizens) to be able to advertise on broadcast media, without any compulsory registration for parallel campaigners.

My next option would be for the Government to have a voluntary system of registration for parallel campaigners. It would have no threshold for registering, but would have an expenditure limit. As an incentive to voluntarily register, a parallel campaigner could then gain access to broadcast media advertising. This would be a strong incentive. It would allow campaigners who do not wish to register to still campaign in other media, but to agree to an expenditure limit if they do wish to advertise on broadcasters.

Other “carrots” for voluntary registration would be the ability to have the Electoral Commission pre-approve an advertisement.

Failing either of those two options, I would opt for the status quo rather than have compulsory registration for parallel campaigners over a certain threshold.

Electoral Administration

The new stand-alone electoral agency will be tasked with publishing guidance on electoral finance rules and providing advisory opinions to political parties, constituency candidates, and the general public on electoral finance law – including whether publications amount to an election advertisement.

I strongly support the creation of the new agency, and the ability to rule in advance whether or not a publication is an election advertisement.

The Government proposes to retain the offences and penalties regime and time limits currently in the Electoral Act 1993.

A major weakness of the Act is that only individuals can be held responsible. Time and time again we see parties escape prosecution by blaming things on lapses between individuals. I would advocate that the penalties regime should include provision for a party itself to be held liable for breaches. Without this, the law remains somewhat toothless.

NZPA report:

Insurance companies which stood to gain from the privatisation of ACC could have made donations to National’s election campaign and no one would ever know, Labour MP David Parker said in Parliament today.

Mr Parker did not say the insurance companies had donated, his point was that because most donations don’t have to be disclosed it wasn’t possible to know one way or the other.

Except he is wrong. Donations over $10,000 do have to be declared. This represents around 0.2% of total election spending by a party.

He was speaking during the first reading debate on the Electoral (Administration) Bill, which puts the agencies responsible for running elections under a single authority.

I hope he spent some time talking about the actual bill, rather than on matters not covered in the bill.

Mr Parker said Labour and National both spent $2.2 million on their campaigns during last year’s election.

Labour disclosed the source of donations worth a total $422,000 and National $130,000.

The level at which donations have to be disclosed is $10,000. Any donations below that remain anonymous.

No they are not anonymous – they are not disclosed. There is a significant difference.

Mr Parker argued the threshold should be $1000.

“Before the election, Merrill Lynch said if ACC was privatised…there would be $2 billion of ACC levies up for grabs and $200 million of additional profit could be earned by Australian insurers,” he said.

Hmmn so in this fantasy world, the insurers will gain $200 million of profits for a less than $10,000 donation. Sure.

If Mr Parker thinks donations buy policies, may be he could explain the $100,000 Labour got from the Vela family a few days before the election.

“We all know that the private insurers stand to gain from the privatisation of ACC. There’s no doubt about that. But what we don’t know is whether those same private insurers were contributing to the National Party.

Yes you do. You know they did not donate more than $10,000.

“I can never prove that they were, but it is wrong for our democracy to be tainted by that accusation.

This is so funny. He invents the smear, and then says it is wrong for the smear to exist.

Mr Parker said the lack of transparency around donations was “a glaring problem” in the electoral system.

In case anyone has forgotten, the laws around donations are exactly those passed by Labour just two years ago.

Just going to respond to press releases from Labour and the Greens on electoral finance reform. Now to some degree it is no surprise they disagree with some of the details in the proposal document. But it is useful to put their comments into context and recent history.

First Labour’s David Parker:

The Government is happy to consult on aspects of electoral law reform that suits it, and won’t look at changes to the donations regime that might disadvantage National, says Labour Electoral Reform Spokesperson David Parker.

First of all I must point out the Government in which Mr Parker served did no consultation on electoral law reform prior to introducing legislation. Yep, zero zip.

Mr Power has consulted all parties over the issues paper, consulted the public on the issues paper and is now giving both parties and the public an opportunity to give feedback on the proposal paper.

So the hypocrisy from Mr Parker is immense. It is also wrong.

The Electoral Finance Reform Proposal issued by Justice Minister Simon Power today shows he is determined to retain the regime governing donations to constituency candidates and political parties even though it became clear at the last election that the rules do not achieve transparency, David Parker said.

Mr Parker does not seem to know what a multi-stage consultation process is. That is because Labour never did them.

The first stage was the issues paper where people could havetheir say on issues, without any idea of the Government’s thinking.

The second stage is the proposal paper, where the Government says this is what we think should happen, but we want your feedback. In some cases they identify options.

The Government has said it proposes no change to the donations law, and the public and parties can give feedback on that before they make a final decision. That is consultation – again Mr Parker may be unfamiliar with the concept.

“Unfortunately, the current regime on donations doesn’t promote transparency. Labour included the regime in good faith in the Electoral Finance Act 2007, but it failed to achieve its purpose.

This is worth stressing. The regime Mr Parker is so bitterly complaining about is one his party passed into law less than two years ago.  Now how about the claim it has failed to get transparency:

“This was shown by the low rates of disclosure by both major parties. National disclosed the source of just $130,000 in donations and Labour just $420,000, though both spent more than $2 million each. This is clearly not transparent.”

Mr Parker is having 2+2=5. He is like the cop who demands tougher powers to search premises, and upon not finding any drugs there, cites it as proof they must be elsewhere and wants even greater powers.

The intent of the donations disclosure regime is to identify the source of any donations that could be large enough to be though to purchase influence. Personally I reckon you need $50,000 before you start to get inflluence but the the law for the last 15 years or so has been set at the lower limit of $10,000. I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument to break the privacy of supporters who gives say $1,000 considering that represents 0.02% of a party’s election spending. Even $10,000 is (for a major party) only 0.2% of a party’s election spending.

Even putting aside that argument, how about the complaint that very few donations were declared in 2008. Well there is a very obvious reasons for that. Many donations normally made in election year, were made in 2007 before the increased transparency (which I supported) requirements came in.

In other words if Mr Parker is patient enough to wait until the next election, he may find a higher level of donations disclosed.

Incidentially I do favour some tightening of the limits. I advocated getting rid of the provision for parties to received up to $240,000  in anonymous donations through the Electoral Commission. Mr Parker does not support getting rid of that, I believe.

I also think a disclosure level over a three year term, not just annually, should also be introduced. But that is a debate for another day.

David Parker said Labour strongly believed there should be public comment on potential improvements to the existing disclosure regime.

“But while the proposal paper seeks submissions on other issues, National has clearly already made up its mind on the donations regime because it suits their purposes.”

There are a number of areas where I intend to submit against the Government’s proposed option. That is the whole pointof seeking feedback on a proposal paper.

Finally I must point out how Labour responded when there was real proof of inappropriate donations. The Serious Fraud Office revealed that the Foreign and Racing Minister in the Labour-led Government had received tens of thousands of dollars in personal donations (to pay his court costs) from a source in the racing industry which had greatly benefited by the Minister’s advocacy of extra funding for the industry.

What did Labour do when the SFO revealed this? They complained bitterly about the actions of the SFO. ANd what did then PM Clark say in response to questions in the house? She said she had not had the time to read the report.

So in case anyone thinks there is anything remotely sincere about Labour’s position, think again.

Then we have Metiria Turei:

Metiria of course voted for the EFA and voted against abolishing it. The Greens never used their power to force Labour to consult on the EFB before it was introduced. Their credibility on these issues is much dented after that.

“It is vital that New Zealand’s democracy cannot be bought by big business.

Funnily enough if you look at the spending at the last election campaign, there was masses of spending by lots of unions but no spending from any businesses or business groups. The only purchasing of democracy has been from the left.

But the whole notion of “purchasing” democracy is bumper slogan politics, rather than rational analysis. The relationship between the amount a party spends and the vote they get is pretty weak. As an example Labour spent more than National last election and got whacked. ACT spent more than the Greens and got under half the vote.

“One of our key concerns is that National’s proposals will not stop political parties secretly giving money to third parties to run campaigns,” said Mrs Turei.

Now we get the paranoia. First they worry about third parties donating to political parties, but now they are worried about political parties having so much money they will give it away to third parties to spend.

I’ve yet to meet a political party that gives away its money. Do the Greens have any examples of when this has happened?

If a third party runs expensive ads in a campaign, I am sure the media will ask who is behind that third party, and where did the money come from. And if the third party refuses to say, well the public are pretty good with this stuff, and will tend to punish those involved.

In the 2005 election, the Exclusive Brethren ran a secret $1 million dollar campaign against the Green Party.

From their own money. Or is Metiria saying she thinks National were secretly funding the Exclusive Brethren?

“Another problem is that donations to political parties under $10,000 can be kept secret – the public has a right to know who is giving their MPs money.

Yes, but at what level. As I said $10,000 is 0.2% of an election campaign for a major party and maybe 0.5% for a minor party. Are the Greens saying you can get “favours” for such a small amount?

The Greens of course have an agenda. They find raising money a hassle, as do all parties. They think taxpayers should be forced to fund their political party. And the best way of doing that is setting the disclosure threshold for donations so low, that fewer people donate voluntarily so they can force everyone to donate to them compulsorily through their taxes.

“We are also concerned about the proposal to allow anyone to run electoral ads on TV and radio, as this would lead to the airways being saturated in electoral ads paid for by wealthy special interest groups,” said Mrs Turei.

Consider what they are really saying here. They are saying that in an election campaign, they do not want anyone who wants to criticise a party, to be able to do so through a broadcast medium. They are saying that only political parties should be able to have their voices heard on broadcast medium. Even worse they are saying that only political parties funded by the taxpayer can have their voice heard, while individuals or organisation who want to use their own funds, are banned from the airwaves.

Such defenders of free speech.

“We don’t want to end up like the US where negative campaign ads paid for by big business dominate the airways.”

Ironically almost everything the Greens propose takes us closer to the US system of political finance. It is the limit on donations to parties and candidates that has shifted the spending to the lobby groups.

Oh and their constant bogeyman of big business is tiresome. Again in NZ there were no business funded election ads, but plenty of union ones. And in the US last election the left massively outspent the right.

Again it would be nice to see some sensible analysis rather than slogans.

The Government’s proposals do not include the option of a fixed election date.

A fixed date would provide certainty for the public and political parties, said Mrs Turei, there is no good reason not to have one. The only reason not to fix the election date was to give an advantage to the Government of the day.

Now I agree with Metiria that there should be a fixed election date. But to be fair to the Govt, this is a consultation on finance issues, not wider electoral issues. A change to a fixed election date is a fairly major constitutional issue. It is one I support but probably needs its own workstream.

Labour have put online their 41 page submission on electoral finance laws. I have three general points to make on it, and then will go into lots of detail.

1. They have backed away significantly from their position on the provisions of the Electoral Finance Act, and are not supporting limits on third party expenditure etc or having the regulated period last all year.
2. Most of what they argue for is reasonably self serving – it is what is good for Labour. In my submission I have argued for many things which I doubt National would find desirable (such as banning anonymous donations over $100 and requiring parties to published audited accounts). So Labour’s submission should be regarded very much as an affected party. That does not mean their arguments have no value.
3. They make many assertions without evidence or proof. An example if their call for state funding when the evidence of 2008 is that it is not needed as both National and Labour raised enough money privately to spend to the limit.

Now into details.

Election rules should not advantage one party over another, nor should they place inequitable barriers to the formation and entry of new parties into Parliament.

Labour claim this, but the actual details of their submission do not match this. Current parliamentary parties have a huge advantage over those not in Parliament yet Labour proposes they be given even more additional state resources and further that parties not in Parliament be banned from purchasing broadcasting time.

Voter registration is one barrier to participation. From 2002 voters have been able to register up till the day before an election, and this has been an important step in improving participation. However, given that voter registration is compulsory, it should also be available on election day itself provided the normal statutory criteria for residence are met.

Good God. Never before have I heard voter registration be called a barrier to participation. That is like calling school enrolment a barrier to eduction.

Recent New Zealand political history has seen a number of occasions where significant sums provided to political parties across the spectrum have raised questions about their purpose in relation to the purchase of influence.

Yes the most recent was the revelation by the Serious Fraud Office that certain racing interests had personally paids debts on behalf of the Racing Minister in Helen Clark’s Government. Labour slammed the SFO for revealing this, and Helen Clark said she would not read the SFO evidence as she had better things to do.

This gives you some idea of how genuinely concerned Labour is by corporate influence in politics.

To better ensure transparency, the threshold for declaration of donations should be reduced to $1000 for both constituency candidates and for political parties.

The argument outlined in the Issues Paper that lower thresholds would be an unjustifiable imposition on freedom of speech is weak and contrary to the principle of transparency. It confuses the right to say what you think with the right to buy policy outcomes without disclosing your interest.

This is an example of Labour failing to back up their assertions with a shred of evidence. What evidence do they have that the current $10,000 limit allows people to buy policy outcomes? Are they speaking from experience?

They need to justify why the disclosure level should be lowered from $10,000 to $1,000.  In other words why should someone not be able to privately donate $1,500? Do they seriously assert you can buy policies or MPs for say $1,500?

$1,000 represents around 0.05% of a major party’s total election year expenditure. Are Labour really saying funding 0.05% of annual expenditure gets influence?

I’m not saying that $10,000 is the perfect limit – but I want a rational reason why why donors who give less than that should sacrifice their privacy?

The current provisions on protected anonymous donations should remain.

This is very self serving of Labour. Having railed against big undisclosed donations, they now say they want to continue the regime where a major donor can give $36,000 to them anonymously through the Electoral Commission. I advocate there should be no anonymous donations (above a minor level such as $100) as it is near impossible to prove or disprove that the party doesn’t actually get to know who donated the money. The protected anonymous donations regime should bs scrapped.

So everyone should remember this – Labour’s official position is to allow for $240,000 of anonymous donations per political party. They are for anonymous donations – not against them.

Overseas donations should be banned completely (except for New Zealand citizens, residents or voters for the time being overseas).

I have no problems with donations from any legal source, so long as they are disclosed if significant. It is ironic that we will accept $127 million donation of art work from Julian Robertson, but claim it is corruption if he donates $1,100 to a party. People can care about New Zealand without being citizens.

But having said that, I’m not greatly fussed either way. However if one is to ban overseas donations – ban all of them – can anyone not on the electoral roll(and over 18) from donating.

There should there be a limit on donations from a single source of $100,000 over a three year period. This limit should be inflation adjusted every three years.

This is from the party that took $500,000 from Owen Glenn. Think that would be their position if he still liked them?

Again Labour fail to make a case for their preference. What is the harm done by someone openly donating $120,000 (say $40,000 a year) to their preferred party. Transparency is crucial, and these should be publicly disclosed so the public can decide on whether or not they have a problem with said donations. Trust the public I say.

If Greenpeace International wanted to donate $150,000 to the Green Party, I would say let them. We should all know about it – so we can decide what we think that means in terms of desirability of supporting the Greens.

Political parties should be required to provide annual audited accounts with itemised categories of donations income so that actual income can be compared with declared donations.

Now this one I agree on, and in fact am very pleased to see Labour advocating it. After the NZ First funding revelations I concluded some sort of audited accounts with donations grouped by size is desirable. I only want the names of those who donate more than $10,000 (as that is level influence may be a factor) but it would be useful to see how many donations between say $1,000 and $10,000 are received. This allows the public to decide if (for example) NZ First’s claims of being all funded by cake stalls was the reality or not.

In election year, donations received by a party after its last annual return to the Electoral Commission should be publicly declared through the Commission on a regular basis after they are received, and up to and during the regulated election period.

This is one issue I forgot to cover in my submission. I actually think donations should be declared monthly during the whole three yearly cycle, and weekly or daily during the last month – we should know about donations when they are made, and always in advance of an election.

So I agree with Labour here, but think they do not go far enough.

The Labour Party believes that the corollary of tightened controls on private funding of political parties – with the greater disclosure and compliance requirements involved – is some provision of public funds for political parties.

Again Labour have failed to prove there is a problem. The Electoral Finance Act brought in much tighter controls on donations, yet both Labour and National spent to the limit. Both were able to raise all the money they needed privately.

Labour want state funding on the basis, there *may* be a problem in the future with inadequate private funding. Not good enough. The 2008 election has shown that there was no shortage of private funding, and Labour’s attempt to gain (even greater) state funding is sheer opportunism.

Both the registered party and parliamentary party contribute to the formation of policy on which the voters base their choice. The accountability provisions in the Electoral Act also devolve to the registered extra-parliamentary party.

Public funding would contribute to the independence of the extra-parliamentary party by providing a balance and the avoidance of parliamentary capture.

This is hogwash. The opposite is the case. One of the few accountabilities that the main party has over the parliamentary party is that they raise the money. This is why parliamentary parties suffer consequences if they ignore their membership.

You bring in state funding, and it allows the parliamentary party to marginalise even further the organisational party.

In our view, a base level of public funding should be available to parties who meet the statutory criteria of 500 members and contesting seats in Parliament. Currently the only available form of public funding for such parties is provided through the Broadcasting Act 1989, which on its own is clearly insufficient.

Parties outside Parliament are massively disadvantaged. But giving Labour $800,000 a year and the Alliance $2,000 a year is not going to change that – in fact it will make it far worse.

My proposal to help parties outside Parliament, is that the broadcasting allocation be restricted to non parliamentary parties only. The parties in Parliament get three years of broadcasting exposure through the media for free.

Broadcast advertising is the primary means that wealth-based electoral systems use to influence opinion.

What decade are they in? How many people even watch TV ads now? Heard of My Sky. Broadcast advertising is no longer as dominant as it once was.

The limitation of broadcast advertising to allocated public funds is an excellent feature of New Zealand’s political system and should be retained.

Far from being excellent, it is a travesty. If a party registers late in the piece they are banned from broadcast advertising. The current rules not only give National and Labour more money for broadcast advertising – but they ban the other parties from being able to spend as much as them with their own money. This is not a level playing field – it is one that favours the two main parties massively.

It may be preferable for the cost of the time allocation to be added to the broadcasting allocation and the time allocation discontinued and replaced with funding that can be used to buy time as best suits the parties. This would allow for freer use by political parties of the resource for broadcast advertising.

Here I agree. But again the hypocrisy – they are saying a party should not be allowed to (for example) spent $50,000 less on billboards and $50,000 more on radio advertising but they are saying parties should have freer use of broadcast advertising. Inconsistent.

Political parties should not be able to purchase broadcasting time with their own resources. This will only serve to advantage parties with access to money.

Nonsense so long as you still have an overall spending limit. The current law gives National and Labour a bigger spending limit that all the other parties as they can’t purchase broadcasting time beyond the allocation. This is about protecting Labour’s statutory advantage.

It must be made clear in the Electoral Act that no spending authorised for parliamentary purposes by Parliamentary Service rules can be counted as election expenses under the Electoral Act.

And this is what they tried to do with the Electoral Finance Act. They want to have the pledge card not count as an election expense. They want to be able to spend say $1.5 million in the final week of the election on “parliamentary publications” and not have it count as an election expense.

I go the opposite direction. During the regulated period, there should be a ban on parliamentary funding of advertising except essential advertising such as office hours.

You see what I mean about how self serving Labour’s submission is. They want to keep their anonymous donations. They want more state funding. They want to stop competitors from buying broadcasting time and they want to be able to spend thir parliamentary budget as late as they like durign an election campaign and not have it count as an expense.

The current limits for constituency candidates ($20,000) and political parties (a maximum of $2.4 million, if all electorates are contested) should be retained but be inflation adjusted (from the 2008 limits as a base) before the 2011 election.

Again Labour make assertions with no emperical basis to them. Mr argument is that the spending limits should be set high enough to allow an affective communication with the public, yet below the level at which you may be seen as “drowning out” others.

$20,000 is totally inadequate for being able to communicate with 45,000 voters. It doesn’t even allow one direct mail letter.

The 1996 limits should at a minimum be adjusted for inflation and population growth. Ideally though, as I submitted, there should eb an attempt to actually calculate what is a reasonable or desirable amount of communication from candidates and parties, cost it and then set the limit high enough to allow that. Don’t guess at what the limit should be – calculate it.

The extension of the regulated period in the Electoral Finance Act to the beginning of the calendar year in which an election takes place added greatly to compliance requirements.

And whose idea was that? Credit I suppose for admitting it was a disaster.

Considering the pattern of the last 25 years, a reasonable fixed date for the start of the regulated period would be 1 May of election year.

I am not against a fixed start date but 1 May is far too early. You have not even had the budget by then. I like the proposal of 90 days before the term of Parliament expires – which will be a known date. If a fixed date I would never go earlier than 1 July.

Provision would need to be made for where a particularly early election was called. We suggest that in the case of an election date being announced earlier than 30 April, the regulated period begin the day after the announcement.

Yes, The regulated period should never be retrospective.

The atomistic redefinition in the Electoral Finance Act (section 5) of “any form of words or graphics, or both” proved problematic.

And we warned against it.

The true name and address of those who promote election advertising should be disclosed.

Yes, but this need not be on the advertisement. The Electoral Commission could have on its website contact details for political parties, candidates, and registered third parties.

Where the third party campaign is issue based and does not seek to promote a vote for or against a particular party or candidate, we do not propose any spending cap but do propose transparency above, say, $100,000 of spending.

This is a better position than the EFA. Transparency is key I agree.

However they seemed to have not covered what rules should apply to advertisements against a party or candidate? Are they sayign these should be banned?

I think everyone accepts you can’t advertise urging a vote for National without National’s permission. But what say you wish to advocate people do not vote for ACT? Are Labour saying this should be banned?

Consequently, parallel campaigners should be regulated if they propose to spend over a specified threshold, say $100,000. They should be required to register with the Electoral Commission, and a list of all such parallel campaigners should be made public, as should their donors.

As I said this is an improvement on the EFA.

The financial agent provisions from Electoral Finance Act should be
reinstated – accountability is only possible if responsibility is clearly
defined.

I tend to agree. But I also worry that parties often get off the hook by claiming x did this without y knowing, so hence no prosecution. This helped get Labour off the pledge card. I propose that parties themselves can also be held liable for breaches. So if they have crummy systems which leads too a breach, they get pinged.

Consideration should be given to reforming and amalgamating the electoral oversight agencies, and giving the oversight agency power to obtain further information about parties’ accounts. This is especially the case if additional state funding is made available to registered parties.

Amalgamation is well overdue.

The role of the Police should be retained for prosecution referrals.

No no no no no do. They don’t want the job. They don’t dedicate sufficient resource to it. They don’t have the expertise and in 2005 especially they made some appalling decisions.

Wow this is a long post. I am looking forward to the pubishing of the other submissions, or a summary of them.