by frog
Another interesting question time today with Bill English asking the Minister of Justice about the authorisation requirements for election advertising and, in particular, giving the Green’s Proud to be Green billboards a bit of airtime on Parliamentary TV by waving round a photo of one of them.
While I support the Electoral Finance Act as an improvement on the old law, there were always going to be problems with it and one of the problems is that the financial agents of parties and third parties are required to put their residential addresses on material rather than a business address.
This is a bit silly because the purpose, to prevent people hiding behind false addresses, can be achieved using business addresses without exposing financial agents to threats from nutters.Initially there was confusion about this and the Electoral Commission told parties that they could use a business address, which the Greens did with the Proud to be Green billboards. Subsequently the Electoral Commission then issued a ruling that it should be a residential address. Uggh.
So in question time Bill English sought leave to introduce an amendment to the Act to change this provision back to the business address. This is a very sensible patch on the Act. Leave can only be allowed if not a single member objects and none did. So now theoretically Bill can introduce such an amendment. It would be good if it was fixed. MMP in action!
Published in Justice & Democracy | Parliament by frog on Thu, March 20th, 2008
Tags: advertising, Bill English, billboards, Electoral Commission, Electoral Finance Act, mmp, Proud to be Green
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
A slippery admission that the Act is full of holes.
Just like we were vilified for saying and marching about.
>>MMP in action!
…created this turkey in the first place. Admit that it’s a piece of crap and dump it.
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In an email to a green MP, I suggested a further amendment to the EFA. Still haven’t heard anything back though. Here are the relevant parts of the email
……….Most of the concerns that I, and many other civil society groups (i.e. Law Society, Coalition for Open Government and the Human Rights Committee) originally held when the bill was at committee stage seem to have been addressed. The one small, but to me important, possible fault that remains with the bill is its overly wide definition of “election advertisement”.
Clause 5(1), as you will know, defines an “election advertisement” in the
following terms
So as I read it, placards, and megaphones, and e-mails, and messages on
Usenet, and even speaking at a public meeting will now be counted as
publishing an advertisement, and will therefore be regulated? But these
things seem to be relatively immune to the influence of money, and are
essentially very democratic mediums of communication – i.e. they rely on
people power rather than money power. So my question is, why should they
be regulated? Why should it be illegal to do any of these things
without the “promoter” putting their name and address to it?
I realise that this issue may have been addressed by the adding of a
clause which gives the electoral commission discretion over advising
prosecution if the offence “small and trivial”. But My feeling is still
that whether these things are, in practice, prosecuted or not, it seems
wrong for them to be illegal at all. As such I would like to recommend
that the green party considers advocating an amendment to Clause (5)1
which has been suggested by Lecturer in Public Law at Victoria University,
Dr Dean Knight, which goes as follows.
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MMP in action indeed. MMP without brains, that is.
Why did the Greens vote for a bill each of its MPs didnt understand? And why are you now supportinga bill that only applies to registered third parties and political parties – why should everyone else have to put their name and addresson purely because they decide not to register or spend below a certain limit?
If the Greens understood this bill one of htem would have put up an eamendment at the time. But no….
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I’d be interested in some evidence of this, Frog. Are you sure you were told this?
Dave – my guess would be that it only applies to parties and listed third parties because the financial agents of parties and third parties will have to be registered with the Electoral Commission (so someone will have their home address and contact details). Others including candidates (current MPs or not) aren’t in the same situation.
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OK G Edge
If financial agents of third parties have to be registered with the electoral commission, and registration is aimed at keeping tabs on the big money, why then is there a need for those not spending big money to have their street address on election material – ie: why do authorities need to know who they are – the public certainly doesnt. Their influence is inconsequential.
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Every election advertisement needs a street address.
At the moment the EFA requires organisations spending over $12,000 to use the residential address of their financial agent.
Organisations spending less than $12,000 do not have to use a residential address now, and will not be made to under the proposed amendment.
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It just seems an ass of a law when the powerful can hide behind business addresses – ( ie: non residential addresses) and private individuals who dpont register as third parties – like Andy Moore for example – not connected to a business has to provide a residential address by stealth because thats all he’s got – unless he puts a mate’s address down – (but whats there to stop him doing that if English’s amendment goes through?_
Its sounds elitist.
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Davec- I agree that the residential address is actually quite important. I’d be fine with people displaying a business address, if they were still required to lodge their residential address with the electoral comission to be revealed on request.
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My view has always been that the EFA is far from perfect and would need amendment. I agree with the intent of Bill English’s amendment and told him so when we met yesterday morning.
And Roger nomes amendment from Dean Knight is well worth a look as well. Bill English only got leave to introduce an amendment around the residential address stuff so he wouldn’t be able to include more without further leave of parliament.
It is perfectly normal to amend an act after it has passed in light of what happens in the real world – statute amendment bills are non-controversial bills that regularly go before parliament to amend laws for precisely this reason.
Part of the problem with amending this law is the politics – Labour are scared to admit that there could be any problem with the EFA, and National and the Herald are keen to make hay if anyone tries to amend it. So patches that would normally be applied to a new and complicated piece of law are not happening.
It will be interesting to see how National and the Herald handle this amendment. If it’s a civilised process it might make it easier to fix any other problems that arise.
Part of the problem also arises from the Jan 1 start date. If we had a start date of April 1, as the Greens tried but failed to get in our negotiations, then this would have given more time to get things straight before it came into effect, and it would have been a compromise with those who argued that Jan 1 start meant the regulated period covered too much of the electoral cycle.
Anyway, hopefully at least one of the glitches will be ironed out soon.
Edge – we had that advice verbally.
I’m taking a much needed holiday so don’t expect me to respond to comments after today. Really enjoying the blog Frog. Learning a lot from it and the comments.
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>>Labour are scared to admit that there could be any problem
They created it. Of course they’re scared – they scared of the truth.
Those of us who opposed were right. And you lot did NOT listen.
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yawn BluePeter. buggering up the address to use doesn’t prove anything one way or the other.
Interestingly just called by the herald who are ringing around to see if the Nats have the numbers to get it thru. will be interesting to see if Labour say they’ll support it.
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>>buggering up the address to use doesn’t prove anything one way or the other
It proves the law wasn’t thought through sufficiently, which is unsurprising given the speed and lack of public consultation. We were vilified for daring to point that out, and no, we will not forget it.
Personally, I’m still awaiting a response from the EC about internet bulletin boards, other than they “don’t know”….
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Russel
Perhaps you dont like the fact that your party is hypocritrical. Perhaps you dont like the fact that your financial agent has committed an illegal practice for breaching S65 of the EFA and should be prosecuted.
Perhaps, Russel, you can tell me why it is not okay for me to smack my kids, why it is okay for people to be investigated for smacking their kids if if it is ok for political parties like the Greens to commit what is an illegal practice with respect of an Act of Parliament each Green MP voted for.
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> It proves the law wasn’t thought through sufficiently
Sure it was – the EFA is all about protecting the incumbent Government by constraining political expression and closing off funding for political challengers, all the while leaving the incumbents funding intact (*cough* Owen Glenn *cough*).
If you look at it in that light, the law was thought through perfectly well, and implemented in the the timely fashion required.
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BP, missing a detail in a new law is incredibly common.
Duncan- certainly this law tips things in Labour’s direction a little. I think it’d be a bit silly to deny that. But given the tricks National used in previous elections to get around spending caps, even though it had already spent considerably more than most other parties, I think it’s actually about time Labour took the risk and passed some legislation of this sort. The real winners are small parties like the Greens or ACT who don’t often get a chance to get a fair go like the larger parties do, and this will hopefully constrain National and Labour’s spending so it’s not so out of proportion with everyone else’s, too.
Keep in mind that a lot of electoral spending was just as unclear before this law came into effect, so that things continue to be unclear in some areas doesn’t exactly prove the EFA was poorly-prepared, just that it has the same problems as any other electoral laws.
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Bah, forgot to end my italics… sorry about that.
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What did Owen Glenn’s not-so-secret funding have to do with anything?
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BP, Duncan
The fact that the parliament intentionally writes laws that leave responsibility to the electoral commission (or to the police and the courts) causes them to need amendment. Most laws get amended. Perfection in predicting what those august bodies will do with the words the parliamentarians deign to provide us is beyond ANYONE.
So your bile is wasted and your anger with us is without substance.
Yeah… they could write better and far more specific laws and I wish to hell they would but this is the NZ Parliament and they aren’t about to do a lick more work or take s gram more responsibility than they absolutely have to.
BJ
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I do not think it’s a case of aiming for perfection and missing slightly.
I do think it’s the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig.
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Thats not to imply that the police and courts do not ALWAYS do interpretation of the laws as written, but it is a criticism of the degree to which the law is left vague, so that NOBODY can understand what will be against the law until the police or other body makes a decision about it.
The police deciding what is against the law is a recipe’ for trouble.
BJ
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BluePeter – Do you actually have experience putting lipstick on a pig? :-b
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They’ll need unanimity, right?
If one MP disagrees, then it will languish at the bottom of the order paper on members day and won’t receive a first reading debate this year, and probably not even next (members business is that full). Any idea if this bill will be accorded some level of priority frog?
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Probably not though… because the guy who’s address will wind up on the labour billboards is going to be more than a little interested. Labour beefed it, Labour can fix it. National has made at least one point with the electorate though. Labour is slow. I don’t see it being hard to get it done one way or another now that the EC has ruled how it reads what parliament has written.
BJ
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Edge – I’m not sure if it will get any level of priority. If, however, it has significant support in the house including Labour’s, the whips can finesse the member’s night schedule to make it work. I would hope they could make it happen fast. As you say, the member’s business is seriously full. I for one wouldn’t want Nandor’s Waste Minimization Bill to suffer any further delays.
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