Political funding under spotlight

Anonymous donations to political parties may be on their way out as a parliamentary committee moves to ensure equity and transparency in the funding of election campaigns.

The justice and electoral committee, which yesterday released the report of an inquiry into the 1999 general election, plans to investigate in more depth next year the issue of state funding for political parties.

Committee chairman Tim Barnett said the inquiry noted that there was general concern about the present system, which allowed parties to receive anonymous donations, and little state support.

"I think we're past the stage that it's acceptable that parties' ability to raise money should really be the limit as to how much money they can spend at the election. I think it's a problem if people don't see a level of openness which they feel is proper in terms of how parties are funded."

The committee was determined to resolve the issue before the next election, although any changes would not come into effect until the 2005 election, he said.

"The ideal that I would support is that, unless a donation was very small, it would be possible for that donation to be sourced publicly."

Although the inquiry report released by the committee yesterday was two years in the making, the issues of state funding and anonymous donations needed to be dealt with in a more focused inquiry, Mr Barnett said.

"I think it would have been easy for us to come up with some sort of superficial donations regime, but I think all the advice from abroad is that unless you can create a regime carefully, it'll just probably be sidestepped.

"You need to have a proper system and also it has to be combined with finalising some kind of position on state funding."

The inquiry on the 1999 election delivered 43 other recommendations, including calls for the Government to introduce compulsory civics education in schools and ideas to popularise voting.

"We need to remember that although we have high election turnouts, one in four New Zealanders who could vote on election day ... don't, either because they don't enrol or because they don't actually turn out to vote."

The committee recommended investigating the idea of mass text-messaging to encourage enrolment and voting at the next election.

"It's all a way of trying to make the action of voting, which is the peak of our expression of our democratic choice ... an exciting and very special moment."

The idea of introducing compulsory civics education was intended to address the cynicism that many young people appeared to have, Mr Barnett said.

"If they're not receiving in their curriculum any clear expression of what a democracy is about - what their role is as citizens, how they can actually work to achieve the changes they want - it's not surprising they become cynical."

The Government has 90 days to respond to the committee's inquiry.

- NZPA