KEY POINTS:
Justice Minister Annette King says legal challenges to the new electoral law will rebound on the interest groups that take the cases.
"It will speak volumes about them ... and their motives, which people have suspected right from the beginning," she said yesterday. "If they want to thwart the system and create havoc, it will be for their own political gain, not for the good democracy of New Zealand or a transparent open system."
The Weekend Herald understands that well-financed lobby groups may try to attract test cases by spending amounts close to the limits early in the year and inviting prosecution.
Others may seek declaratory judgments on whether something in particular is an election advertisement, like the advertising campaigns for Working for Families and KiwiSaver.
Other groups could form themselves into a political party, by signing up 500 of their members, thereby increasing their spending limits on advertisements from $120,000 to at least $1 million.
The Electoral Finance Bill is expected to receive its third reading in Parliament on Thursday and will take effect from January 1. It extends the regulated pre-election period, limits third-party spending and broadens the definition of election advertising.
MPs are exempted from the electoral law for anything they do as MPs. And under new laws on parliamentary spending, they can receive taxpayer funding of advertising at any time (while others are being regulated) so long as it does not solicit votes or money.
Ms King has held the Justice portfolio for just over a month.
She said it was good to see protest organiser John Boscawen declare his Business Roundtable connections this week.
"He comes from a background where they want to be able to spend what they like, to get what they want for the purposes they want."
She believed the public was "totally bemused" by what the fuss was about.
"They remembered the 2005 elections and the Exclusive Brethren and the book Hollow Men. But they are not sure what all the hysteria is around the fact that people are having to declare what money they spend on an election campaign."
National, meanwhile, will propose an amendment when debate on the bill resumes on Tuesday for its commencement date to be April 1 to give more time "to come to grips with this opaque and complicated bill".
