Editorial: State funding by stealth needs to stop

Democracy in the minds of most of us is associated with free speech and the rights of anyone to court our vote but in law it is not that simple. Until the Labour Government came to grief with its Electoral Finance Act, now repealed, many voters might not have realised how strictly elections were previously controlled in the interests of financial equality.

The previous code, now back in force, limits the amount parties and candidates can spend on campaigns and particularly restricts parties' access to radio and television. They are given a set amount of "free" time for opening and closing their campaigns and an allocation of public money for broadcast commercials. Parties are not permitted to use money they have raised themselves to buy more air time even if the spending would be within overall campaign limits.

National is part-way through a promised review of the law and has just published some options for public comment. It would retain public funding for party advertising either under present rules or with no restriction on the type of media in which the money can be spent and no limit on the broadcast time a party can buy from its own funds, provided it is within overall campaign limits.

A third option would allow parties to spend their public allocation for any election purpose, not necessarily campaign advertising. From there it would be a short step to full public funding of election campaigns. Once the taxpayers' contribution ceased to be for a defined purpose, parties would soon press for public funds for all purposes.

If the review was being conducted independently of political parties we might be presented with another option: the end of this state-funding-by-stealth. There is no particular reason that taxpayers should have had to pay for the promotion of parties on television. It is nonsensical that even fringe campaigns can get on air by making an application on time. Let all contenders prove their worth by raising voluntary finance. And let them spend it where they think best.

The previous Government's vexed issue of "third party" campaigns - publicity for or against a party or on an issue that works to a party's advantage or disadvantage - has not been resolved by the review so far. National, too, wants to regulate "parallel campaigns" as it calls them, but wants to make their spending rules simpler than those Labour laid down and "weighted in favour of freedom of speech".

It could set a high-spending threshold before registration is required and rules applied and would relieve parallel campaigns from obligations to disclose donations. But the mere existence of a threshold could discourage participation in the election by groups or individuals who are unsure what it is.

If public opinion prefers, National would simply retain the status quo which places no restriction on campaigns that oppose a particular party but requires supporting campaigns to have the party's approval and account for its spending as part of the party's permitted amount. If that seems unfair, the simpler course would be to remove all restrictions. It is sufficient for public protection that publicity, for or against a party or its issues, has to carry the name of a verifiable author.

And parallel campaigns should be allowed to broadcast during election periods.

The red tape of electoral finance was hopelessly tangled even before Helen Clark got her hands on it. National is at least proceeding cautiously; the proposals offered for discussion until the end of the month are a response to comments on a paper issued in May. Public views will be invited again next year when legislation appears. Constitutional steps should be taken this way. It is for all of us now to have our say.