Editorial: Electoral law reform on the right track

Opinion

The government has gone the right way about electoral finance reform, consulting all other parties as the previous Government did not.

Inevitably, therefore, the decisions announced yesterday contain some comfort for parties such as Labour that fear private money in politics, and some disappointment for those who welcome all contributions to public life.

The decisions announced by Justice Minister Simon Power retain some Clark-era red tape around individuals or organisations that want to promote their views at election time. If they spend more than $12,000 on advertising they will have to be registered with the Electoral Commission.

To those who live by rules of advocacy this does not seem arduous, but to someone outside the political class who simply wants to promote a cause, the mere existence of a rule is discouraging. All that most people will know is that they are not entirely free to speak at their own expense.

Those who register a parallel campaign, as National calls them, will not face the spending limit the Clark Government tried to impose. They will continue to be prohibited from publishing material which expressly supports or criticises a party or candidate.

Supportive campaigns would obviously threaten the limits parties and candidates can spend but criticism is not in that category. National should have overridden opposition parties' fears of independent criticism. So long as critics have to identify themselves, the integrity of the system is not threatened.

Sensibly, the legislation will keep the change that the Key Government made to the regulated period, to three months before election day, not the beginning of the election year as the previous Government had it.

That made 2008 strangely quiet; normal election transmission should resume next year. When it comes to policing election spending, disclosure is preferable to restrictions. The Government proposes to require parties to publish the amounts donated to them, rather than identify all donors. Total amounts donated will be recorded in bands, for what that information will be worth.

There will be no relaxation of the restrictions on election broadcasts, which can be made only by political parties that have to make them with public money and must be kept within the amounts allocated.

It would be better to let, in fact insist, parties use their own money for television and radio commercials, or let them use public funding for any form of advertising they prefer. But Labour and the Green Party were strongly opposed to any change.

The decisions announced yesterday do not appear to go far towards resolving the misuse of parliamentary funds for election purposes. The usual rule is that parliamentary information money can be used to push party barrows as long as the material does not expressly urge a vote, a donation or membership of a party.

It is well past time a tougher test was imposed, and not just within three months of an election, which is the best we can expect from this exercise.

When it comes to making electoral law, a consensus of the parties in Parliament is preferable to the edicts of the one or more in power, but a consensus of parties is not the ideal. A disinterested commission would be a more reliable body to draw up rules of campaign finance, advertising and disclosure that encouraged maximum participation.

People who properly identify themselves and spend their own money to take part should be welcomed, not discouraged.

Voters will be persuaded, or not, by their force of argument, not their wealth. The next electoral finance law is much less restrictive than the last but too much has been compromised.