KEY POINTS:
The Government is refusing to say what changes it expects to a controversial bill reforming the law relating to election campaigns.
The bill, which includes a proposal to cap spending by third parties during election year, has been severely criticised since it was introduced to Parliament late last month.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said earlier this week the bill may cast its net too wide and she was sure there would be changes in select committee.
Today in Parliament, Miss Clark refused to specify what changes would be made to the bill saying that was a matter for the select committee.
National leader John Key wondered why Cabinet had approved a "deeply flawed and anti-democratic" bill.
Had Cabinet been incompetent or had it tried to slip past the changes in the hope that no one would notice, he asked.
Miss Clark said neither option was correct.
"Electoral law legislation is always very carefully scrutinised in select committee," Miss Clark said.
Miss Clark said many of the proposals relating to third parties were largely based on similar laws in Britain and Canada.
"That does not suit The Hollow Men who want to buy elections."
The Greens and the Coalition for Open Government are concerned that in drafting the bill, the Government dropped proposals to tighten up on anonymous donations and the use of trusts to fund campaigns.
Miss Clark told MPs that those issues could be addressed by the select committee, but repeated her belief that there would need to be more public funding of political parties to "trade off" the drop in donations that would come if anonymity was banned.
National's deputy leader Bill English continued the attack on Justice Minister Mark Burton saying he had either been responsible for a badly written bill or had been trying to slip through a draconian law.
Mr Burton said the bill was written the way it was to ensure it could be introduced into Parliament, like the prime minister he expected changes under scrutiny in select committee.
National has described the third party provisions as a draconian and Mr English has written to lobby groups such as Greypower raising concerns about restrictions on advertising and donations made to them.
Mr Burton said Mr English was misleading and trying to scaremonger.
Mr Burton said the need for third parties to register donations only related to donations for election related campaigns and not their general fundraising.
The bill was intended to protect elections from clandestine campaigns designed to get around electoral law such as those conducted by the Exclusive Brethren in 2005.
The bill puts a $60,000 cap on the amount third parties can spend during an election campaign.
National says that would pay for a couple of full-page newspaper adverts, and that the cap is an attack on free speech.
It also opposed another provision in the bill that would make January 1 the "starting date" of a campaign for spending purposes.
The Coalition for Open Government said it believed the bill could easily be "tweaked" by using the wording in British law relating to third parties.
"Then we could focus on the real scandal with the bill - its failure to do anything about huge sums given to public parties in secret," coalition spokesman Steven Price said.
Greens co-leader Russel Norman said it was time to "turn down the level of hysteria" about the bill.
Labour and National were in a "catfight" to protect their big money supporters.
There was a need for the committee to look at whether the bill was too broad, the election cap was too low, and the period covered was too long, Mr Norman said.
- NZPA
