KEY POINTS:
The Greens, who will support the Electoral Finance Bill through Parliament, say the amended legislation is still too lax in dealing with anonymous donations.
The Greens yesterday trumpeted their role in revising the bill, saying the new version should allay the concerns of most New Zealanders.
However, the party - which last election was targeted by an initially anonymous negative advertising campaign funded by the Exclusive Brethren - also distanced itself from Labour by adding a minority view to the justice and electoral select committee's report, saying the recommended regime for anonymous donations was still too loose. The Greens were also disappointed that they could not muster any support for their proposed "citizens' assembly" to investigate electoral issues such as partial public funding of political parties.
"The Greens are unhappy with the process for this bill," co-leader Russel Norman said.
"We believe that a much better process would be to establish a citizens' assembly to consider electoral finance rules. Such citizens' assemblies have been used recently in Canada. They involve randomly selecting a male and female voter from each electorate who are brought together over a series of weekends to consider the rules around electoral finance. They are properly resourced and run by an independent body such as the Electoral Commission. Their recommendations would become a bill that was introduced into Parliament.
"Our democracy belongs to the people and they should be the ones to set the rules."
While critical of the way the bill was drawn up, Dr Norman said the Greens believed improvements they had negotiated protected freedom of speech and made elections fairer.
Green-inspired changes included more stringent restrictions on the value of anonymous donations, and more latitude on "third parties" so the right to freedom on expression was not compromised.
