KEY POINTS:
A spokesman for the Exclusive Brethren church has created a difficulty for the Government's surviving proposals to restrict election campaigns. The spokesman, Australian Tony McCorkell, came here to try to dispel the impression that the seven Exclusive Brethren who campaigned against Labour and the Greens at the last election were acting for the church.
Mr McCorkell made a fairly convincing case but it does not really matter, for the purposes of election law, whether it was convincing or not. The proposed law can do no more than ask people to identify themselves, it cannot insist they disclose any affiliation that opponents might think relevant.
As Mr McCorkell said, seven Catholics might decide to run a publicity campaign against the Government on issues of common concern to them. That does not imply they have the backing of the Catholic Church or represent it. People of opposing views might well think their religious affiliation relevant but there is no way the law can insist they disclose it if they do not claim to represent the church.
It has been easy to forget, amid the Government's demonisation of the seven Brethren, that the group never claimed to be acting for the sect. They presented themselves, when finally forced to do so, as seven concerned citizens who happened to be members of the same church. Their publicity usually carried one of their names, as required by law, and it is hard to say that greater disclosure could properly be required.
If seven members of the same service club, or university faculty, or garden society decided to pool their individual resources and publicise their common concerns to voters, should they have to acknowledge the nature of their association? Or is it just a religious affiliation that ought to be disclosed?
Many might say yes. It is an issue that sometimes arises in our own columns when we publish social comment by writers who have a strong religious identity but do not see that it is relevant to their argument. They are conscious of course that many would prejudge their argument on account of their religion. And many who would do so say they have a right to know where the argument is "coming from", as they say.
There are good reasons to require all election campaign contributions, argumentative or financial, to carry a verifiable name of a person or an organisation. If a company or wealthy individual is seeking to persuade the public a certain way, the electorate needs to be able to see whether the persuader stands to gain materially. But if the subject of concern is one of social morality or philosophy it is hard to see a risk of corruption.
It is also hard for that sort of campaign to hide a religious character. In the heat of the last election campaign the seven Brethren found it necessary to come forward and did not deny the nature of their association. They may have indulged in some underhand American-style telephone techniques and some of their published material was almost identical to that used by fellow churchmen in Australia. But that does not incriminate the church as a whole.
There are many Exclusive Brethren in the country. They generally do not vote or take much interest in politics. There are elements of their exclusivity, where it crosses family lines, that leave them open to serious criticism. But apart from the secretive seven, they do not deserve to be pilloried.
The Government harbours a needless unease about religious participation in politics - at least when it comes from the conservative side. Its concern was never heard when clerics were leading a national protest against the policies of the previous government. Election rules should not be written from one side.
