KEY POINTS:
Voters beware! Helen Clark's Labour, the party that filched $800,000 of taxpayers' money to pay for its 2005 election campaign, is trying to orchestrate a state-funded bailout using your money.
That's the only possible conclusion a right-thinking person could draw from the contemptible abuse of process the ruling party is demonstrating with its behind-the-scenes machinations to get state funding for political parties in place for next year's election.
Voters don't need to wait until next year's election to deliver a "no way" statement to our out-of-touch Government. Get on the blower to talkback radio, write to your MP and kick up an almighty fuss so this country doesn't go further down the path of Mugabeism.
Herald political editor Audrey Young has done voters a favour by blowing the whistle on Labour's behind-the-scenes plan. Young's disclosures, played out over several days in the Herald, reveal not only does Labour want state funding; it wants to lower the threshold for anonymous donations to $5000, ban foreign donations, clamp down on third-party spending, and create special search warrants to probe suspected illegal practices. And backdate the start date for election spending limits to January 1 next year instead of the usual three months before the election.
You would think Labour would have learned some lessons from its public drubbing last year. It was ultimately forced to back down and pay back the $800,000. The grubby deal it is trying to negotiate with two minor parties has outraged the public.
Clark's Cabinet initially refused to comment on the Herald's disclosures. But Justice Minister Mark Burton has finally broken cover alleging National, which has not been part of the process, is indulging in scaremongering to hide real fears that the reforms will stop the National Party and groups like the Exclusive Brethren from ever again rorting campaign funding and spending laws.
"What have they got to fear from a fair, open and transparent electoral system?" Burton (not the smartest politician in Cabinet) asked.
Quite. Mr Burton: If you want to achieve the sort of fair, open and transparent electoral system that underlies your warrant as Justice Minister then use an open and transparent process to determine the rules of the game.
State funding has been adopted by many democracies.
The 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System considered parties should be required to get the bulk of their financial needs from their own supporters. It took the view that private funding enhanced political competition and democratic participation, and forced parties to connect with grassroots supporters.
But if New Zealand is to examine making a substantial shift to state funding to provide a bedrock for political parties, then it should be addressed by an authority that is independent of politics. Certainly not by a partisan Justice Minister. And not through grubby inter-party negotiations that do not include the ruling party's opponents.
Undoubtedly there are complexities. National - and Labour - have received anonymous donations. National Party president Judy Kirk concedes her party is prepared for more open donor disclosure and will also need to dismantle the trust structures which are subject to abuse.
But Labour was itself propelled into power in 1999 on the back of some $824,000 of anonymous donations. Labour argues that dismantling anonymous donations will ensure that National can't make any cash-for-policy deals. But that simply begs the question whether Labour gave its anonymous donors anything in return for their support.
The foreign-donor clampdown preserves Labour's practice of hitting up businessmen like Owen Glenn, an expat who has not lived here for decades, for $500,000 donations. But it outlaws part-time residents, such as US businessman Julian Robertson, from contributing to National.
The third-party spending clampdown is aimed at the Exclusive Brethren. But it tramples our rights to free speech.
Labour wants the election campaign period backdated because National got its witty billboards up well before the last election. Such a clampdown will, however, give Labour an extraordinary opportunity to boost its policy profile by ramping up Government advertising while critics suffer in silence.
Labour exempts trade unions from the $60,000 spending limit where they are communicating with their members. And distorts the issue by exempting companies when they don't lobby their employees for votes.
When it comes to gross over-spending, let's consider the one figure that matters: The Election NZ website spells out clearly that Labour was the only party to overspend its legal party campaign limit at the 2005 election.
It was limited to $2.380 million. But it spent $2.798 million.
The party that flouts the rules should not be the one to determine the next game.
