Video: King and English debate in Parliament yesterdayKEY POINTS:
If the law is sometimes an ass, then the Electoral Finance Act has proved to be a real donkey when it comes to stupidity, inflexibility and sheer unworkability.
If anything, last year's dire predictions of the measure's potential impact on political discourse have proven to have been on
the conservative side.
Things have reached truly Kafkaesque proportions when it is considered necessary to remove references to the "Labour-led Government" from Budget press statements for fear they will be deemed to be election advertisements and breach the act by not being properly authorised as such.
Such rich ironies abound. Labour thought that by getting the legislation through Parliament last year, the public fuss would die down going into election year.
To the contrary, Labour has suffered continuing embarrassment as Justice Minister Annette King, her officials, the Electoral Commission and the courts have grappled with what interpretation should be given to the act's wording.
King suggested applying her Law of Common Sense. The Law of Unintended Consequences may be more relevant.
The measure is a textbook example of how not to write legislation. It sought to close every conceivable loophole through which someone or some organisation might climb in order to thwart long-established rules on party advertising during election campaigns.
It was thus bound to produce anomalies. It may yet stop Labour's major trade union allies from campaigning as organisations separate from the party. Worryingly for Labour, the act may keep on creating unfavourable or embarrassing rulings in the weeks up to and including the coming election campaign.
While portions of the act deserve praise - notably tougher rules on the disclosure of donations - the legislation's more controversial clauses were unnecessary. The Exclusive Brethren's covert campaign against the Greens during the 2005 election could have been punished had the authorities chosen to enforce existing law.
However, dealing to the Brethren was cover for the Electoral Finance Act's real and clandestine purpose - stopping National running advertisements and erecting billboards throughout election year.
The act has certainly done that. But National is riding so high in the polls, it has hardly needed to bother with such self-promotion anyway.
The act's secondary purpose is to enable Labour to keep using taxpayer's money for what is effectively electioneering through raiding its parliamentary budget - the case with its tax cuts brochure which hit the headlines last week for using a stock photo of an American family on its cover, rather than an actual New Zealand family.
With Labour facing a mood for change and sceptical of media objectivity, getting its message into people's letter-boxes is the bottom-line for the party and reason why it has endured the criticism and embarrassment flowing from the act's provisions.
After some toing-and-froing with the Electoral Commission, Labour is still able to use parliamentary funding for self-promotion, although the spending will have to be included in the party's overall election expenses which are limited to a maximum $2.4 million.
Labour also figures that as the debate about the Electoral Finance Act has become increasingly more complex, it is corresponding becoming more difficult for voters to comprehend or bother about. Other more personally relevant issues - fuel prices and murders - are crowding out the act and stopping it getting the attention it was accorded last year. The debate is increasingly restricted to the Wellington "beltway".
Like a nagging toothache, the act is going to keep giving Labour bother. But it has probably already inflicted as much damage on the party as it is ever going to - another reason why Labour is unlikely to retreat from the act's questionable provisions.
