KEY POINTS:
It is hard to decide what the worst feature of the Electoral Finance Bill is:
a) that it was pursued with such self-interest by Labour without the bipartisan approach associated with something as important as electoral law;
b) extending the regulated period for electioneering almost all of election year; or
c) that it gives incumbent MPs an even greater unfair advantage over outside rival candidates and groups that oppose them or their policies.
Today I'll opt for (c). The bill won't create a level playing field. Well, it will for MPs. They will all have equal claim to taxpayer parliamentary funding for thinly disguised electioneering in party colours while their opponents of their policies on the outside are put through new hoops.
When Annette King stands up in the House this afternoon to move the third reading of the bill, all ears will be on how MPs will be exempted from the act.
She has promised to give her interpretation of how that will work. She has done that once before the help out the Electoral Commission in its work to interpret the bill but realised quickly it was too restrictive.
King will no doubt say that MPs will continue to do what they always have done and that there have been exemptions for them in the Electoral Act.
That is half the story. There is one clause in the new electoral act that is comparable to an clause in the old act exempting MPs for "publications that relate to a member of Parliament is his or capacity as a member of Parliament." [81 (2) g].
But there is nothing is the present act that gives MPs the sweeping exemption they are about to vote themselves this afternoon in clause 80 (d) which exempts from being counted as an election expense "anything done in relation to a member of Parliament in his or her capacity as a member of Parliament".
If there is any doubt that the rules have changed for MPs, consider Labour's pledge card.
The pledge card was dubious last election on two counts: that it was approved under parliamentary spending and the fact that Labour thought it should not be counted under the Electoral Act (the Chief Electoral Officer thought otherwise).
The same card now would sail through new rules on parliamentary expenditure, no question, and it would not be counted as an election expense under the exemptions.
Helen Clark is very fond of invoking the memory of the Exclusive Brethren's behaviour last election.
Those shenanigans could have been dealt to with better disclosure and enforcement rather than greater limits on freedom of expression.
Let's not forget that the sins of the last election were as much Labour's.
