Thursday 6 February 2020


A perennial undercurrent of recent general election campaigns has been the issue of party fundraising. With the emerging controversies this year over the shadowy role of the New Zealand First Foundation and the Serious Fraud Office’s decision to prosecute four individuals over the way in which a since returned donation to the National Party was accounted for, this year’s election campaign promises to be no different.

The Electoral Act contains a number of very specific provisions about how political parties and candidates are to account for the funds they raise, and the Electoral Commission has played a role in policing those. However, their specificity and the petty nature of many of the requirements has led parties and candidates over the years to explore various imaginative ways of getting around them or minimising their impact.

At the same time, parliamentary parties have similarly sought to maximise their electioneering opportunities from their Parliamentary funding to supplement whatever funds they raised externally. And they have become equally inventive and skilled in this regard. Over the latest summer, for example, Labour MPs ran billboards sporting large smiling photos of themselves promoting a banal and obvious message to drive safely over the holidays. This had nothing to do with road safety at all, but everything to do with promotion of the MPs concerned at the start of election year, and all within the rules at the taxpayers’ expense. National MPs have been no less diligent – the glossy electorate newsletters featuring a series of awkwardly staged photographs, and even more trite questionnaires “to find out what you think” are just as much about promoting the  MPs they feature, as are the Labour billboards. The implicit notion that through these devices both Labour and National are “communicating” with those they seek to represent is as facile as it is fatuous.

In 2006, after the uproar over Labour’s taxpayer funded “Pledge Card” at the 2005 election the then Auditor-General conducted an investigation into expenditure of public funds by Parliamentary parties and concluded that most parties were spending their public funding improperly. That was ultimately self-defeating. While it led to a further arbitrary tightening of the rules, it also set off a new round of devices being employed by MPs to get around them.

Now I am not arguing against the corny billboards or the trite newsletters, per se – MPs must be able to promote themselves, their activities and their views to their constituents to enable a fair assessment of their worth come election time. But I am saying that the current plethora of Parliamentary and electoral rules are a nonsense that do more to encourage developments like the creation of institutions like the New Zealand First Foundation, or the breaking up of donations into smaller amounts to stay below a legislative threshold, than they do to eliminate them. While the rules may be a bureaucrat’s dream, giving more power than could ever be considered reasonable to petty non-elected officials like those who populate the Electoral Commission, they simply do not work, as current events show.

There is an obvious and simple solution to this that politicians who love preaching personal responsibility for others should be prepared to adopt for themselves. Scrap all the rules regarding the use of their allocated Parliamentary funding by individual MPs and their parties and replace them with a simple requirement for every MP and their party to file an annual audited return of their specific Parliamentary expenditure. The public would quickly prove to be far better monitors of what was reasonable use of public funds by politicians than any set of confusing, ambiguous and often contradictory Parliamentary rules could ever be.

At the same time, all the financing provisions of the Electoral Act could be abolished and replaced with one simple overarching provision: every donation made to a candidate or a political party, whether in kind or cash, from overseas or within New Zealand, whether it be $1 or $1,000,000, should be fully disclosable.  This would place the onus fairly and squarely on the party or candidate to be absolutely transparent about whom and where they were receiving contributions from, while at the same time protecting their freedom of choice and association.

The chances of this happening are close to zero, as no party, however much it might like to lecture others on the subject, would ever submit to that level of transparency.  Nor could the electoral officials and associated academic and legal fusspots who love nit-picking over these issues even tolerate the notion that people other than them could ever be trusted to be accountable in this way. Their whole careers have been built after all on their smug self-belief they know what is best for others.

So, the more the rules are tightened and tinkered with, the more bureaucratic checks that are imposed, the one certainty is the more politicians and political parties will simply engage in even more elaborate ways of getting around them. And the more we should come to expect election years being clouded by the types of funding controversies we are seeing already this year.

10 comments:

  1. Hello everybody, thanks to Dr LOSA the spell caster i am from USA, i don't just Know the reason why some people is finding it difficult to believe that there is a cure for HIV, my son have been suffering from HIV since last three years but today i am happy that he is cure from it with the herbal medicine of Dr DR LOSA the great healer,i was browsing the INTERNET searching for help when i came across a testimony shared by someone on how Dr LOSA cure his herpes i was so much in need of getting his treatment but after all Dr LOSA brought a smile to my son face with his herbal medicine. i am so much happy today that we have someone like this great healer out there, so my people out there kindly contact this great healer on his email address: (dr.losaherbahome@gmail .com) please sir keep your good work cause there are people out there who is in need of your healing medicine.once more email him now: (dr.losaherbalhome@gmail.com) you can call him OR WHATSSAPP HIM +2349056464736
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      Good-day viewers that is reading this article, i want to share to the world how this great man save me from HERPES VIRUS 1/2 3years back i was battling with this terrible and disastrous disease which was so detesting,well on my aid of looking for solution all my effort conceived nothing, I was devastated but one day out of great enthusiasm i saw this intrigue testimonies about Dr Ojoka so afterwards i contacted Dr ojoka on his emails: (drojokarootandherbal@gmail com) I explained myself to him and i obeyed all his instruction without protesting any further he assured me that all will be fine and that was it,i was totally cure when i used the herbal medicine that was sent to me,Thank so much sir Dr Ojoka for your help, Dr ojoka also cures several disease such as DIABETES, HIV AIDS, HEPATITIS B & C And many more, incase you are going through this same infection yours can also be cured, contact his mobile or What App : +2348144172934
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    2. [HOW I GOT CURED FROM GENITAL HERPES VIRUS )
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      [HOW I GOT CURED FROM GENITAL HERPES VIRUS )
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      he can also cured this disease,CANCER,ALS,HPV WARTS,HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE,STROKE

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  2. Hello everybody, thanks to Dr LOSA the spell caster i am from USA, i don't just Know the reason why some people is finding it difficult to believe that there is a cure for HIV, my son have been suffering from HIV since last three years but today i am happy that he is cure from it with the herbal medicine of Dr DR LOSA the great healer,i was browsing the INTERNET searching for help when i came across a testimony shared by someone on how Dr LOSA cure his herpes i was so much in need of getting his treatment but after all Dr LOSA brought a smile to my son face with his herbal medicine. i am so much happy today that we have someone like this great healer out there, so my people out there kindly contact this great healer on his email address: (dr.losaherbahome@gmail .com) please sir keep your good work cause there are people out there who is in need of your healing medicine.once more email him now: (dr.losaherbalhome@gmail.com) you can call him OR WHATSSAPP HIM +2349056464736
    DOCTOR LOSA CAN AS WELL CURE THE FOLLOWING DISEASE:-
    1. HIV/AIDS
    2. HERPES
    3. CANCER
    4. ALS
    5. Hepatitis
    6 Diabetes
    7 LOVE SPELL
    8 IF YOU NEED YOUR EX LOVER BACK TO LOVE YOU AGAIN.

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  4. Am Laura Mildred by name, i was diagnosed with Herpes 4 years ago i lived in pain with the knowledge that i wasn't going to ever be well again i contacted so many herbal doctors on this issue and wasted a large sum of money but my condition never got better i was determined to get my life back so one day i saw Mr. Morrison Hansen post on how Dr. Emu saved him from Herpes with herbal medicine i contacted Dr. Emu on his Email: Emutemple@gmail.com we spoke on the issue i told him all that i went through and he told me not to worry that everything will be fine again so he prepared the medicine and send it to me and told me how to use it, after 14 days of usage I went to see the doctor for test,then the result was negative, am the happiest woman on earth now thanks to Dr. Emu God bless you. Email him at: Emutemple@gmail.com Whats-app orCall him: +2347012841542 

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  5. Website: (https://emutemple.wordpress.com/  I was born and raised in a small town on Long Island in New York. I live there today with my wife and three wonderful children. I want to testify of how I was cured from prostate cancer by Dr Emu. I was on hormone therapy for advanced prostate cancer. At first I was having lots of signs and symptoms like excessive urine at midnight and also I was experiencing dribbling of urine all the time I was going through hell I search for a cure☑ on the internet I came to know about Dr Emu I saw lots of testimonies of how he cures diseases like *Prostate Cancer *Herpes  Virus *Genital herpes *Hiv/Aids*Breast Cancer and more am happy am cured thanks to Dr Emu I recommend Dr Emu roots and herbs as best natural herbal medicine with no side effects. For consultation and more contact him via Email: (emutemple@gmail.com) (emutemple@yahoo.com) WhatsApp or call +2347012841542 

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  6. Must read! My names are Nicoline Nielsen from US taxes, for a year now i have been living with this virus called HEPES VIRUS and i have been taking some medications from my Doctor and there was no improvement, All thanks to God almighty for using Dr Agbomian for curing my HERPES Virus with the help of his powerful root and herbs...Well i do not have much to say, with all my life i will for ever be grateful to him and God Almighty for using Dr Agbomian to reach me when i thought it is all over, today i am now happy after the medical doctor have confirmed my status Negative, i have never in my life believed that HEPES could be cure by any herbal medicine. so i want to use this medium to reach other persons who is suffering from any deadly disease you can contact Dr Agbomian on his email dragbomianherbalcured77@gmail.com

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