Kiwiblog

Stephen Franks has raised the issue of the Hollow Men play with the Electoral Commission. Nicky Hager was a strong supporter of the Electoral Finance Act, so it would be very ironic if the play based on his book was shut down as it is now an illegal election advertisement.

Let us look at how it may be an advertisement. First take s5(1)(a)(i)

election advertisement means any form of words or graphics, or both, that can reasonably be regarded as … encouraging or persuading voters to vote, or not to vote, for 1 or more specified parties…

Now a play is a form of words and The Hollow Men certainly encourages people not to vote for National. So is it exempt? What are the seven exemptions in s5(2)?

1. electoral agency advertisements
2. editorial material in a periodical
3. radio or television programmes
4. media Internet sites
5. books
6. documents published to members or shareholders
7. blogs

So we have established that The Hollow Men play is almost certainly an election advertisement, and is not covered by any exemption. Next we ask is it “published” as defined in s4(1)?

publish, in relation to an advertisement, means to—

(a) print or insert in a periodical published or distributed in New Zealand; or
(b) issue, hand out, or display, to the public; or
(c) send to any member of the public by any means; or
(d) deliver to any member of the public, or leave at a place owned or occupied by a member of the public; or
(e) broadcast (for example, in the form of a radio or television broadcast); or
(f) include in a film or video displayed to the public; or
(g) disseminate to the public by means of the Internet or any other electronic medium; or
(h) store electronically in a way that is accessible to the public

We can rule out (a), (c), (g) and (h). But Stephen makes the case that a play can be considered to be displayed to the public, or delivered to any member of the public. Also if a PA system was used it could be caught up by (e) and if a promo clip for the play is put on You Tube, then that may breach (f).

One can’t say for sure that the Hollow Men play would or would not be illegal, but it shows how far reaching the law is.  It may escape the law only because it does not fit the definition of publish, even though it is defined as an election advertisement.

Now Nicky Hager should be very grateful to the anti-EFA lobbyists that we kicked up such a fuss about the select committee version of the EFB, that they deleted this clause in the definition for publish:

(i) bring to the notice of the public in any other manner

This was the infamous megaphone clause which the select committee added in. It got removed after protests.  But if that clause had remained in, then the case for The Hollow Men play being closed down by the Electoral Finance Act would have been greatly strengthened.

Stephen Franks is back blogging after National’s internal rules prevented him from doing so during the candidate selection process. The rules are to prevent what he calls “Clinton/Obama style fraticide” which is a great way of illustrating it.

Stephen hits back at distortions of his position on issues such as the Prostitution Reform and Civil Union Bills, and defends classicial liberals against what he labels collectivists who has stolen liberal clothing

Grant Robertson has also welcomed Stephen to the contest, and says he is looking forward to debating values, issues and policies. He says it would be good to hear Stephen’s views on National’s policy to keep core public service numbers constant for the next three years.

This might be the first ever contest where both major candidates blog. It will be great if we do get some useful discussions going between blogs.

They have just announced the results of the first ballot and Stephen Franks has won on the first ballot. He gave an exceptionally good speech.

National Party selections are in full swing, as they try to get them all finished by early to mid April. Last Thursday there was a Meet the Candidates Meeting upstairs in the Backbencher at 5.30 pm. I popped in seeing it was on my way home.

The three Wellington Central candidates are Paul Quinn, Stephen Franks and David Broome.  They all spoke and answered questions well.  Obviously only one of them can be candidate for Wellington Central,but I hope more than one of them can make their way into Parliament. It’s great to see all over the country so many good candidates stepping forward.

These meetings are not public, so I can’t go into details, but I can reveal that I asked a question stolen from Grant Robertson’s blog – which was to ask all the candidates to name a policy they think would be good for NZ, but which would be unpopular.

Most people probably don’t realise how gruelling a National Party selection contest can be.  So I thought I would use this post to explain.

First of all the selection meeting is made up of at least 60 delegates, based on a delegate  for every 15 members in the electorate, plus a top-up if that doesn’t make 60 by the local Region .  You have to have been a party member for at least six months to be a delegate.  The largest electorates can have around 150 delegates at the selection meeting. The Head Office gets no say at all except they can veto unsuitable candidates at the pre-selection stages.

Now once nominations close, candidates get told who the delegates are. Because it is a defined group of people (unlike Labour where any member or affiliated union member can turn up on the night), there is intensive lobbying.

In a serious contest, each candidate will have one on one meetings with all 60+ delegates – lasting about an hour each. On top of that there may be half a dozen “cottage meetings” where a dozen or so delegates are invited to hear a candidate talk and ask questions informally.

Then you have the three formal Meet The Candidates meetings. All delegates must attend at least one of these, and  they consist of 6 – 8 minute speeches from each candidate (with them all staying in the room for each other’s) and then questions from the floor which can be to one or all of the candidates. This can go on for some hours, and you can get some aggressive or tough questions.

Then you have the selection night, where each candidate has a ten minute speech, and then they have to answer two questions – one from the Leader and one from the President.  The same questions go to all candidates, so they don’t stay in the room for each other’s speeches. Then you finally have the vote.

So a candidate for the nomination may end up doing 60+ one on one meetings, half a dozen cottage meetings, three meet the candidate meetings plus the actual selection meeting.  It is no small commitment.