KEY POINTS:
The 2005 election campaign highlighted election spending law problems but Labour did not hold a Commission of Inquiry because:
a) it might have taken too long.
b) it might have unearthed problems better left buried.
c) it might not have come up with the right answers.
The answer, of course, is all of the above.
Instead of commissioning a credible and independent examination of how the financial aspects of the Electoral Act have worked - or not - under 10 years of MMP, it has come up with its own recommendations to put before Cabinet.
But the really hard part starts now: convincing other parties and the public to back the proposals, including state funding for political parties.
Labour's proposals fall into five major categories: transparency of donations; restricting third party campaigns; clarifying election expenses; beefing up enforcement of the law; and state funding.
Some are aimed at issues that cropped up during the last election but others address much older problems such as what candidates can count as election expenses.
Almost none of the recommendations cover last year's parliamentary spending fiasco involving the Auditor-General's finding that most parties unlawfully spent Parliament's money on the election.
But the memory of that unfortunate episode is fresh. Labour's attack on the Auditor-General and the passing of retrospective legislation to validate invalid expenditure reinforced the perception that political parties will always put self-interest before public interest when it comes to political funding.
There are merits in many of the proposals, yet to be publicly released.
But most serve Labour's interests at the expense of National's.
That will add to the perception of self-interest and give smaller parties cause to pause before associating themselves with it, or at least the state-funding component.
New Zealand First has always opposed state funding and would look venal if it supported it now.
The Maori Party promotes itself as an independent voice for Maori, which is not an easy fit with being state or "Crown" funded.
United Future does not want to back a bill that gives $10,000 no-strings-attached to a party that promotes the legalisation of cannabis.
The 1986 Royal Commission recommended state funding. But a select committee that reviewed the commission's report in 1993, before MMP in 1996, believed that it would damage voters' attitudes to parties and to politicians and decided against it.
Today, it would be no different. Labour may be forced to unhook the state-funding proposal from the rest of its election law plans. Perhaps then it will realise how much more credible an independent inquiry might have been.
