KEY POINTS:
The controversial Electoral Finance Act will be repealed by the end of next week and all but the donations disclosure regime will be replaced with the old the Electoral Act 1993 as an interim measure.
The old law will be in place for any byelection, such as would
be triggered if former Prime Minister Helen Clark landed the job she has applied for at the United Nations.
The penalties under the present act will be retained in case there are any offences over returns yet to be made on expenditure for the last election.
But the Government will then embark on a cross-party consultation process to rewrite the electoral law.
It has already abandoned the review of the act that was to have been headed by Otago University Associate Professor Andrew Geddis.
Justice Minister Simon Power will take the repeal bill, the Electoral Amendment Bill, through all stages.
He said the plan involved all political parties in consultation.
"We will be taking the Leader of the Opposition [Phil Goff] up on his offer."
Shortly after becoming Labour leader Mr Goff said Labour had made a mistake in passing the Electoral Finance Act without wider political consensus.
Mr Power said his aim was to have an "enduring legislative framework" for electoral law towards the fourth quarter of next year.
Asked how the consultation would take place, he said he would be leading the discussion with each political party.
They would have input into an issues paper that would then be open to public and political submissions.
That would be followed by legislation which would be sent to a select committee for public submissions.
He said there would be wide-ranging legislation at each stage of the process.
He said that Prime Minister John Key was keen to see the matter "over-consulted than under-consulted".
The bill was proposed by Labour in the wake of the 2005 election in which members of the Exclusive Brethren church undertook a secret campaign to attack Labour and the Greens and support National without affecting National's spending limits.
But the extent of the change attracted a huge amount of criticism, including from the Electoral Commission which had to administer much of the new law.
And while the new act imposed tougher spending rules on all parties and candidates, it liberalised the advertising spending rules of sitting MPs and parties.
