Electoral Finance Act 2007 - Controversy

Controversy

The Coalition for Open Government, a group that advocates the reform of election finance law in New Zealand, opposed parts of the Bill, particularly the failure of the Bill to ban secret donations to political parties, given the strong financial disclosure requirements placed on third parties.

The broad definition of "election advertisement" came in for particular criticism. Critics, including the New Zealand Law Society, Catholic charity Caritas, and the Royal New Zealand Forest and Bird Society argued the definition will catch not just electoral speech, but almost all political speech - including things like placards at protest marches.

The parliamentary opposition, the National Party, also opposed the Bill. Political commentator Matthew Hooton argued that the Bill should not proceed, and that the Minister of Justice was a "danger to democracy". On 6 October 2007 the Free Speech Coalition was formed by prominent right-wing bloggers David Farrar and Cameron Slater, and Bernard Darnton, leader of the Libertarianz Party, to oppose the Bill. The New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society and NORML New Zealand, and the Direct Democracy Party of New Zealand also opposed the Bill.

Criticism has also been made over the process that led to the Bill's introduction, which involved discussions only with the Labour Government's supporting parties and not the Opposition.

Political commentator Chris Trotter had harsh criticism of the detractors of the Act in several opinion pieces in The Dominion Post. On 17 August he wrote

"let's just take a deep breath and examine the rules that govern election spending in Britain and Canada (countries which, the last time I looked, were still counted among the world's leading democracies). In Britain, "third party" expenditure is capped at 5 per cent of the expenditure authorised for political parties in the 12 months prior to polling day.

In Canada the figure is 1 per cent, but applies only to the period of official campaigning. (Mr Burton is proposing a cap of 2.5 per cent or $60,000 for 10 months.) In both Britain and Canada, third parties are required to register with the official electoral regulators; both countries also restrict the contributions of foreign donors to third parties; and both require the identity of third party donors to be made public. That is how modern democracies conduct themselves.

But, in New Zealand, it is still acceptable (at least to the National Party) for those with the most money to have the most say."