KEY POINTS:
The revised Electoral Finance Bill remains a constitutional outrage - for the hasty and partisan way that it is proceeding as well as its repression of election participation. Parliament's justice and electoral committee has removed some of the draconian elements, not all, and introduced a completely new dimension to our electoral rules, requiring large donations to be channelled through a public body, the Electoral Commission.
Nobody needs to read very far into the 151-page report to realise this subject is too big and too important for a select committee, dominated as such panels are by the governing parties. The drastic plan for the channelling of donations seems to have appeared before the committee not much more than a fortnight ago, and the bill will need to be rushed through remaining stages before the year's end to bring all private political finance under state control from the beginning of election year.
The bill still seeks to control not just donations to parties and their spending but also the campaigns that any other group in the community might mount for the purpose of speaking to voters. To spend their own money at any time in election year they will have to register themselves as "third parties", make financial declarations about their donors and expenses, and keep within a statutory spending limit. The committee has doubled their spending cap to $120,000 but that is only 5 per cent of the amount permitted to parties.
As originally drafted, the bill would have captured any group "taking a position associated with one or more parties". That preposterous clause has been culled by the committee but another remains. It will be an offence to encourage people to vote, or not vote, for "a type of party or type of candidate described by reference to views, positions or policies ... " whether or not the party is named.
Thus if civil libertarians, for example, want to urge New Zealanders to stand up for their freedom to publish their political views in election year, they will be caught by the bill from January 1. That sort of message would clearly be intended to encourage people not to vote for the Labour Party.
Anyone who registers as a "third party" will have to accept the red tape and restrictions involved. That will be enough to deter the precious few who might put their own money into public advocacy, and our politics will be poorer for it.
The Human Rights Commission, which sounded its alarm at the original bill, has been consulted during the revision and believes the redraft now requires its own round of public consultation. At the very least, it says, a summary of the redrafted bill should be sent to the hundreds who filed submissions so that they can comment before it passes. Sadly, the committee has chosen "the very least".
The bill is a drastic alteration of electoral law, going to the heart of our freedoms and democracy. It is being rushed and reeks of partisan opportunism. It should go no further.
