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>>I worry about how we handle both the moon-bats and small parties just starting up. Perhaps a two tier system so a small party starting up gets some funding so they can get big and strong enough to reach the threshold for grown-up funding
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And therein lies the problem, of democracy in an MMP environment. There is an argument that suggests that all should be equal, and another that says loonies don’t deserve equality. I think equality is the only way to go, because sometimes the loonies rule the bin; however, we could set the hurdle a bit higher to eliminate the basically ridiculous.

Suppose we say that to be registered as a “political party’ for general election purposes you need to produce registration papers for at least half of all constituencies (with deposits), a registration fee of $50,000 and evidence of having at least 20,000 paid up members with a minimum membership fee of $150 per person and no ‘non-human’ memberships allowed within the constitution of the party. To my mind that combination, with a requirement that all parties intending to stand in the next election renew their registration on the above basis (plus inflation) by December 1st the year prior to a scheduled election, would provide some assurance that the energy and investment required to facilitate a party’s participation in the election was worthwhile. On the basis of this approach to registration, I would be happy to afford each registered party an equal share of an election spending pool that was fixed at ten 2008 NZ dollars for every registered voter as at the day the election was called, with the proviso that there could be no other monies spent on electioneering of any kind, and the money could not be spent in advance of receipt, including polling. (This would enable the country to benefit from about 32 months of government per election as opposed to the 22 we seem to get now (this parliament seems to have started in February 2006 and my observation would be that it moved into election mode about December last year).

As for funding research on issues, etc., I would be happy to see central funding of $250,000 per MP, to be spent on all support services (other than travel to and from parliament), including all party and personal office expenses. If a party wanted to spend more then that should be at their own expense for which I would expect them to undertake fund-raising. Cabinet Ministers do have greater costs, so I would provide them with $2 million for the PM, and $500,000 plus $100,000 per portfolio for the others, to cover ministerial costs including travel. If the governing party thinks ministers need help through the appointment of Associate Ministers, it would have to spread the funds already available.

Might as well finish this off I guess. I would provide MPs from out of Greater Wellington (i.e. more than 45 minutes one-way by commuter train) with a two bedroom apartment in a purpose built campus, Ministers, including the Prime Minister, would be housed in the same campus, but with a higher standard of furbishment. I would pay the Prime Minister $4 million a year, Cabinet Ministers $2 million a year, all other MPs $500,000 per year, Pensions would be managed through Kiwi Saver and there would be no “life-time” benefits. Travel to and from the nearest Railway Station or Airport (if the train journey is more than 2 hours) would be provided, all other travel costs would be personal expense (I don’t think going to the local RSA for an ‘event” in the electorate is ‘official’ business, it’s part of getting re-elected.

SO there’s a somewhat all embracing proposal - discussion would be good I think.

(OH. on the basis of 120 MPs and 20 Cabinet Ministers with a total of 30 portfolios the cost, apart from housing and travel, would be $140,000,000 or circa $1 per tax payer per week. I would regard that as reasonable value for money. )

But, bear in mind that it is only the things that are deemed to be ‘electioneering’ by the relevant law that count. Whether or not something is deemed to be ‘electioneering’ by other laws is irrelevent.

But I’ll be very surprised to see the Green Party (or any other party for that matter) putting in a post-election expenses return to the Electoral Commission that includes the millions of parliamentary-funded dollars they spend on electioneering this year!

Anita - yes, NRT’s diagram is very useful. The diagram obviously isn’t attempting to show the proportionality of these different expenses (but instead just their relationship to one another) - but if it did, then the “Parliamentary Advertising” circle would need to be significantly bigger than the other circles.

Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz

Some PS spend is counted under the EFA, some isn’t.

No Right Turn has my favourite diagram: http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2008/04/electoral-finance-act-explaine d.html

I would want a slightly more complicated system

a) There should be a parallel stream for funding issue advocacy/promotion. It’s an equally important part of democratic participation and fixing one without the other will skew the system.

b) I’m tempted by straight even split across parties, but I worry about how we handle both the moonbats and small parties just starting up. Perhaps a two tier system so a small party starting up gets some funding so they can get big and strong enough to reach the threshhold for grown-up funding.

I’m sure there are lots more issues I haven’t thought about yet

What we need is a public lead, public focussed discussion so we can understand and talk through all the issues.

As the Listener pointed out last year, the EFA combined with 2007’s Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill, will have a profound impact on elections by allowing incumbent political parties and MPs to have a huge advantage over any challengers. Essentially the ruling parties will face different spending rules to any challengers and will effectively have a ‘legalised advantage’.

Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz

But such state funding also has a lot of consequences for the party system that might not be viewed so positively. One of the main consequences of state funding is that parties then marginalise their membership even more as they have no reason for them at all. The Royal Commission on the Electoral System was particularly worried about this issue, and said: ‘We share the fears that have been expressed that an unnecessary increase in State assistance would reduce parties’ need to rely on their ordinary members for financial support and voluntary work. This could, we consider, lead to a lessened commitment to recruitment of, and responsiveness to, those members (RCES, 1986: p.211).

Another huge problem is that state funding leads to a much more moderate party system. The independence from civil society that state funding affords political parties has a strong tendency to shift parties further into the centre of the political spectrum as it frees them to a large extent from the ties of their present backers. Personally I think this is a very undesirable thing. This increasing independence (or weakening linkage) also means that some of the classic functions of parties, such as the articulation of interests, the aggregation of demands, and the formulation of public policy become undermined.

Of course we already have a huge system of (backdoor parliamentary) state funding of parties - so a lot of this has already happened. The Greens for example get the vast bulk of their financial resources from the state now.

The point is that such funding doesn’t solve political corruption (just as it hasn’t in Italy, Germany, France, US etc), but actually creates just more and greater demand for state funding and further corruption problems to do with state funds

Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz