KEY POINTS:
National has begun to crank up a new campaign against the Electoral Finance Bill by approaching about 500 interest groups to encourage them to make submissions to the select committee studying it.
The party expects to make political capital out of the legislation, which was introduced just over two weeks ago.
The bill leaves the rules regarding political parties, their donations and expenses largely intact but introduces strict rules for third-party involvement in election campaigns and limiting their expenditure on them to $60,000.
The regulated period is expanded from three months before an election to almost all of election year - starting at January 1 - and requires detailed compliance measures.
The definition of "election advertising" includes any form of words or graphic that can reasonably be regarded as "taking a proposition with which one or more parties or one or more candidates is associated".
Under the bill, third parties also have to forfeit any anonymous donations over $500 to the Chief Electoral Officer, while political parties get to keep theirs.
Deputy leader Bill English is running the campaign for National and heavyweight frontbenchers Simon Power and Tony Ryall will replace the party's more junior MPs on the select committee.
Mr English has told the groups: "The scope of the bill is so broad that any public communication by your organisation in election year will need to be scrutinised for compliance with the electoral law."
He told the Herald the blatant aim of the bill was to silence critics of the Government, which can then spend millions of taxpayer money in promotions by state departments on policies such as KiwiSaver and Working for Families.
Critiques by others of the bill have suggested that Government departments might be caught by the legislation and that their own advertising on issues in election year would have a cap of $60,000.
Justice Minister Mark Burton, in a statement to the Herald, said such spending by Government departments had to follow Cabinet Office guidelines and could not be party political.
"It must be impartial, accurate, factual and truthful. Government advertising that abides by these guidelines does not take 'a position' on party political issues."
It would therefore not be caught by the legislation.
Coalition for Open Government spokesman Steven Price, a critic of the bill, rejected the suggestion that it was designed to shut down criticism of the Government.
"It is pretty even-handed in its wide-nettedness. It catches supporters of the Government. But it does show that it has gone too far. It affects everyone."
Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union national secretary Andrew Little yesterday said the bill would place limits on the sorts of campaigns it runs in election year.
"I'm not averse to some limitations to make sure election campaigns don't become contests for who has got the deepest pockets. We don't want to get into an American-style [campaign] where there is no point running an election campaign unless you have got hundreds of millions of dollars behind you."
