The Electoral Finance Act 2007 was a controversial act in New Zealand. The Electoral Finance Bill was introduced by the Fifth Labour Government partly in response to the 2005 New Zealand election funding controversy, in particular "third-party" campaigns.
The proponents of the bill generally held that it was required to prevent wealthy private parties from "buying elections" anonymously via advertising campaigns or other financially costly lobbying, while the opponents considered it a serious restriction of civil liberties, and further considered that spending private money on political campaigning was a democratic right.
Read more about Electoral Finance Act 2007: Effect, Controversy, Royal Assent and Eventual Repeal
Famous quotes containing the words electoral, finance and/or act:
“Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“A bank is a confidence trick. If you put up the right signs, the wizards of finance themselves will come in and ask you to take their money.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)
“We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in pursuit of it. No, we are complicated machines; and though we have one main spring that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometime stop that motion.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)