Lies, damned lies

Matthew Hooton’s column in the SST was labelled “Lies, damned lies: ‘Nazi’ election bill”. Key points:

The government has resorted to outright lies to defend its Electoral Finance Bill, as it refuses to back away from its plans to restrict citizens from participating freely and transparently in our democracy.

In the last fortnight, Justice Minister Mark Burton a mere frontman for more sinister forces within the Beehive has used taxpayers’ money to write to community groups, saying his bill does not restrict the ability of “legitimate groups” to play an active role in public debate. He insists “organisations can raise any issue of concern to them at any stage leading up to an election”. Only “secret, big-budget campaigns” that seek to influence voters “unduly” are affected, says Burton.

These statements are entirely false. Burton’s bill, signed off by the prime minister, is crystal clear: it regulates all words or graphics that express a view on any issue with which any politician is associated during the period before an election.

Now what is interesting is to compare the letters from English and Burton to community groups on the Bill. The English letter (electoral-finance-letter-10-final-august-2007.doc) is to the point and factual. The attachment (electoral-finance-bill-summary-3rd-parties.pdf) sent with the letter, which Burton has called misleading, takes the unfair step of actually quoting clauses from the Bill. A very mean and misleading thing to do you will agree. How dare National actually quote from the Bill.

But the real contrast comes in Burton’s letter (scan of letter), compared to English. Burton doesn’t quote from a single clause of the Bill. His entire letter is a polemic against “opponents” and a giant “trust us”. Again, the Minister doesn’t even refer once to a single clause of his own Bill.

Now this is scary. It’s one thing to introduce to Parliament a draconian bill which will remove rights of free speech in election year. It is quite another to lie to community groups about what the Bill does and does not do.

I encourage people to look at the actual attachments and see for themselves the vast difference  One is factual and merely encourages community groups to make submissions.  The other fails to refer to a single specific clause of the Bill, and basically just attacks the usual “enemies”.

So would you buy a used car from Mark Burton?