More open donations law still possible

Justice Minister Simon Power. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Government will consider changing laws on disclosure of political donations to make them even more transparent despite offering no change yesterday in published proposals, says Justice Minister Simon Power.

He told the Herald last night he would consider greater transparency depending on feedback from parties and the public over the next five weeks.

Mr Power is overseeing electoral law reform, and yesterday issued a document with various options for parties and the public to consider over the next five weeks.

The interim law that replaced the Electoral Finance Act kept the disclosure system set up by Labour in 2007.

National, which voted against Labour's rules at the time, is now proposing that they stay.

And Labour wants to replace the system that it introduced.

Labour electoral reform spokesman David Parker wants the law changed so all donations of more than $1000 to parties or candidates have to be declared.

Political parties must now declare the source of donations over $10,000.

Mr Parker said that the donations disclosure law "failed to achieve its purpose".

"This was shown by the low rates of disclosure by both major parties," he said.

National and Labour each spent more than $2 million in last year's election, but National had disclosed only $130,000 in donations and Labour $420,000.

Mr Power said that if submissions over the next five weeks produced further "elucidation" on transparency in donation disclosure "I am certainly happy to have a look at it but in the end you have to put a proposal down".

He said National had adopted the position Labour and the Greens supported on the Electoral Finance Act, but "we are not too fazed".

"We will see how it goes."

Other big decisions to be made include setting the period for which election spending is regulated and whether spending limits should apply to third-party campaigns that are not endorsing a party or candidate.

Spending limits on parties and candidates are likely to be lifted beyond the present $2.4 million for a party contesting all electorates and $20,000 an electorate.

These figures have not changed since 1995, and if they were to maintain relativity, they would need to go up by 25 per cent.

Mr Power also said he had written to Parliament's Speaker, Dr Lockwood Smith, asking if the cross-party committee responsible for disclosing information on individual MPs' expenses could look at the use of Parliamentary Service funding during the election period.

He said he wanted to make sure that the two sets of spending regulations were "aligned" before an election.

"That line has to be drawn in a way that makes it absolutely clear what funds from the New Zealand public are being used with respect to parliamentary matters.

"It needs to be clarified. It has been less than satisfactory."

While there was no repeat last year of the scale of spending public cash by political parties seen in 2005 - including $400,000 on Labour's pledge card - the law has been relaxed, not tightened.

It allowed the Parliamentary Service to pay for advertising deemed to be election advertising by the Electoral Commission.

The spending was legal because it required parliamentary-funded advertising to be authorised as election advertising.

"I would argue that the rules between the two regimes need to be sufficiently clear so that how Parliamentary Service funding is used works on an aligned regime to how election expenditure is recorded," Mr Power said.

"I think it is a really significant issue ... but I don't control that aspect of it."

Asked if he expected it to be impossible for something like Labour's 2005 pledge card to be funded from the public purse, he said: "My expectation is that that sort of crossover is undesirable."

Mr Power said the office of the Chief Electoral Officer and the Electoral Commission, which share the administration of elections, would be merged before the 2011 election.

A bill would be drafted after submissions from the present proposals and the public would be able to have a say again during the select committee stage.

The functions of the Chief Registrar of Electors would be transferred to the new agency in the following term.

- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: NZPA