Coalition For Open Government, New Zealand

Please spend a few minutes to make a difference to a new law tackling the influence of big money and secret money in our elections. Just click the link below to have your say to the Parliamentary committee overseeing the law. Public pressure is vital to ensure we take secret money out of our elections.

The Electoral Finance Bill is the biggest rewrite of the election laws for years – with over 150 clauses – including good parts, technical parts and disappointing parts. Some sections matter most of all and we urge you to have a say about them.

1. MOST IMPORTANT: REINSTATING THE BAN ON ANONYMOUS DONATIONS AND SECRET TRUSTS

If you only ever say one thing about this legislation, please insist that it prohibits secret election contributions via anonymous donations and secret trusts. The Government promised this and until recently it was the centre piece of the new law. We suggest a law that requires all donations above $500 to be declared and that makes it illegal to siphon funds through a third party, such as a secret trust fund. These two measures, combined with stronger penalties for breaking the law, will remove the most corrupting influence from our election system. Essentially, the same strong rules being introduced in the bill for ‘third parties’ (such as lobby groups) doing election-time campaigning should be applied to political parties as well.

There are other important points worth making:

2. BAN OVERSEAS AND CORPORATE DONATIONS TO POLITICAL PARTIES

Until recently this bill included a ban on overseas donations. As the 1986 Royal Commission said, as a matter of principle it is not legitimate for wealthy and powerful interests outside New Zealand to intervene in our electoral system. The ban on overseas donations should be reinstated. Likewise, in a one-person, one-vote system, why should corporations and other organisations that are not entitled to vote be allowed to influence political parties and elections with money? The bill should follow the Canadian example and only permit political donations from people who are entitled to vote in the elections.

3. STRONGER PENALTIES FOR BREAKING ELECTION FINANCE LAWS

Unless there are strong penalties, parties and wealthy lobby groups will simply break the law when it suits them. One industry lobby group is already boasting that it intends to break the new law. We suggest there should up to seven years in prison and a $1 million fine for “corrupt practices”, where a person knowingly breaks the election finance law.

4. SUPPORT CONTROLS ON EXCLUSIVE BRETHREN-STYLE CAMPAIGNS

The bill contains rules for restricting big-spending third party campaigns of the sort we saw from the Exclusive Brethren in the 2005 election. The rules would make third parties disclose their big donors, who would not be allowed to hide behind secret trusts. Those clauses are good – and they should apply to political parties, too. It’s also sensible to regulate how much individuals and corporations can spend trying to influence the election debate. But the bill should strike a better balance between free speech and sensible controls.

5. SUPPORT OTHER GOOD PROVISIONS IN THE BILL.

Especially a) support spending limits for political parties during the full election year (from 1 January), not just for the last three months as at present. This is is avoid parties with wealthy backers outspending their opponents before the three-month official election campaign period begins. And b) support public disclosure of election donations throughout the election year, so the public can know who is funding parties’ election campaigns before casting our votes.

Please do it right now…. just click on this link to have your say, then click “SUBMIT” to send it to Parliament.

The final date for public comments is 7 September 2007.  There is more information in the August issue of our newsletter Open Government Report.  Download the newsletter here (PDF file, 145 kb).

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY.

Coalition for Open Government, August 2007. www.cog.org.nz