Russel Norman on Electoral Finance Bill

It is worth remembering as one considers the Electoral Finance Bill that while Labour drafted it, the Greens have bene unashamed cheerleaders for it.  Like Labour, at most they’ll just concede some minor tweaking may be needed.

Now in the latest post from Russel Norman he attacks National for attacking the Bill and calls on them to be constructive and help make this a beter bill.

Now this would almost be laughable if it were not so sad.  Labour, Winston and the Greens negotiate in secret this incredibly flawed bill.  They refuse to take up the many months of requests from National to be consulted on the bill.  They refuse to allow multi-party discussions on the bill, and then in a tone of pious indignation they complain that National is not being constructive.

National was in fact planning to vote for the bill if it had been a workable bill that did what it promised it would do.  But as it became apparent what a travesty the bill is, they did the principled thing and refused to support it.

The Greens should be ashamed for their role to date.  Labour could not have introduced this bill without their support.  They could have insisted on a multi-party approach to the legislation.  More importantly they could have  insisted on a public policy process instead of a secret one.  But they sold their votes out for almost nothing.

Perhaps the Greens should listen to one of their Youth MPs, Jaz Morris.  Here is his take on the Electoral Finance Bill:

 The Labour party, the so-called workers’ party, has really become a power hungry club for sold-out Fabian socialists – instead of leading on the basis of democracy and freedom. The status quo surrounding election spending clearly has problems. But to go from this to a law of minimal public involvement and red tape seems a bit of a leap. If Labour really wanted the most democratic elections possible, firstly it would throw out the EFB and secondly it might deal with the exact problems it seeks to ‘solve.’

The EFB needs to be destroyed, not just because it is dangerously anti-democratic but because doing so sends Labour a clear message – back to the drawing board on policy, ethos and political aim.

Jaz is right.  Labour should not be helped out and saved for having introduced such a draconian bill.  They should have every party in Parliament turn around, whack them around the head a couple of times, and told to come back and do it properly.

The effective deadline of Christmas 2007 for changes to the Electoral Act should not be used by the Greens and others as an excuse to pass unto law a bill which is not only so badly flawed, but has also not been part of any public policy process in terms of its underlying principles.

If the Greens continue to push the Electoral Finance Bill down such a flawed path, simply because of their desire to have law changes done before Christmas, then they are doing the classic case of the ends justify the means.

Worst of all they are doing it to one of the cornerstones of our constitution.