Principles
Our key points are below, or you can download a Word document here (45 kb). These points are a draft, designed to encourage debate and we welcome your comments on these - you can leave a comment below (note: comments are public and are able to be viewed by all people visiting the site).
Coalition for Open Government - Key Points
1. Ban anonymous donations
Parties should have to record who is giving them money. There should be no anonymous donations above $20.
Parties should have to disclose the identities and donations of anyone (or any organisation) who gives more than $200 in a year. It should be an offence to donate money via another person or a trust.
Parties should have to disclose their donations leading up to the election, so voters know who is giving money when they vote.
2. Limit the size of large donations
No person or organisation should be allowed to give more than $5000 a year in political donations (including a maximum of $1000 for any one candidate).
3. Control third-party election campaigning
People and organisations wanting to spend money to influence the election publicly should disclose their identities and, like parties, have their spending limited to a reasonable cap. This is a difficult area to develop effective laws; we will be developing more detailed policy.
The law should stop people colluding to circumvent the spending limits.
4. Enforce the laws effectively
Political parties should be liable for breaches of electoral laws.
The fines and jail terms for corrupt and illegal practices should be increased significantly: for example, the maximum penalty for corrupt practices should be $1 million for parties and 7 years’ jail for individuals.
Parties should have to declare more of their election-related expenses – including money spent on issue advertisements, polling, and political strategists. And those expenses should be included in the parties’ spending caps.
There should be one independent Crown agency to oversee, monitor and enforce all election laws.
5. Make all public funding of elections fairer and more transparent
Any increase in public funding should only follow much tighter donation and disclosure limits.
Public funding should be linked to a party’s level of popular support and be designed to encourage greater democratic engagement.
The unfair election broadcasting rules should be abolished.
Any increase to current levels of public funding of political parties and electioneering should be transparent. Parliamentary spending should be rigorously checked to ensure it is not being used for electioneering.
April 5, 2007 at 9:24 am
1. I wonder about the figure of $5000 per person limit. i think it is too high as it will allow the wealthy to unfairly have a disproportionate influence.
2. Have you approached Nicky Hager to be a patron. His research has been v thorough, his book has had a major impact on NZ thinking and I would like to see him on the case with COG. I believe his name would add considerable weight.
Could you please add my name to the mailing list–in particular i would like to know how best to help lobby in this cause.
Congratulations for this important initiative.
April 9, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I support your important initiative, and I’m currently using the onsite information to draft an article on COG for GayNZ.Com, where I’m a frequent contributor to the Politics and Religion section. Given the Exclusive Brethren’s interference with our last general election, I think you can count on support from our communities for this important next step in political accountability within New Zealand. Please put me on your mailing list.
April 10, 2007 at 7:05 am
What a woeful document.
First, there is no real link between the organisation of the 1970’s and this one. Nor are the circumstances in anyway analogist. Indeed this organisation supports a wholesale intrusion of the State into the democratic system under the guise of “transparency.” The first organisation supported shifting the balance of power between the State and the Individual towards the individual. Not this one.
Second, there are no “principles” annunciated here only a jumble of policy propositions. The only coherent principle is advocacy for a further regulation of New Zealand’s political system without identify the mischief one is trying to get at. A more accurate name for your organisation should be “Coalition for Highly Regulated Democracy.”
There is no recognition that any regulatory regime that makes it less likely for individuals to voluntarily contribute to the democratic system is actually an attack on the fundamental rights of Citizen’s including the right of free speech. Your trite statement in relation of non candidate/political party free speech that “[t]his is a difficult area to develop effective laws; we will be developing more detailed policy” is remarkable it certainly shouldn’t pass muster in a law school or pol studies essay. Why not simply be honest: your organisation supports attacking the freedom of speech of non candidates non political parties – a fundamental freedom which is proposed to be reduced to bureaucratically State “pre approved” and “authorised” speech.
Where is the evidence that any political party has knowledge of the anonymous donors or indeed has been swayed by these in terms of specific policies. Where is any recognition of any countervailing interest: in a small and intimate society an anonymous donation regime is essential to guard against the risk of retribution. But let us examine how far COG is prepared to go to ensure no advantage or disadvantage flows to political donors as a result of their donation should there be total public disclosure.
Will COG support the lifting of Parliamentary Privilege (and therefore the application of our default defamation laws) for statements made in Parliament alleging wrongful influence by political donors as donors in our political system?
Will COG support the criminalisation (like the penalties you propose for corrupt practices) of any behaviour by the Executive (or Crown agencies) that results in advantage or disadvantage following to donors as a result of their donor status?
Will COG support explicit statutory recognition that any consideration of a donor’s status as donor in the awarding of any contract or exercise of any public power is grounds for judicial review in the High Court.
Let us see whether your organisation will propose the necessary protection that should accompany full disclosure of donor status.
April 11, 2007 at 11:15 pm
“Public funding should be linked to a party’s level of popular support” - why? Shouldn’t all registered parties be given equal opportunity to promote their policies to the public, to allow voters to make an informed decision on election day? Deciding which parties are the important ones beforehand is thoroughly undemocratic. A party’s level of popular support is partly determined by funding, so giving extra funding to the biggest current parties just reinforces the status quo.
April 18, 2007 at 12:14 am
I’m g;ad to see the resurrection of COG. I think that since elections are for registered voters, only registered voters should be involved. Therefore P Parties must only accept donations from registered voters, publish who they get large donations from before the election, and be punished if they have any other means of support. They should not be able to employ any helpers who are not registered voters.
Outside election campaigns, businesses who wish to lobby government must get the support of their shareholders to do so and on what specific grounds the are to lobby.
April 19, 2007 at 8:22 am
Yes I do think there should be open government.A good start would be for all voters who are members of political parties to register such memberships on the electoral roll so that we would all know for whom the politicos do indeed speak for.We should also restrict political donations to those who are actual members of political parties with donation rebates to be done just as it is for charities and churches etc.I do also believe that all political parties shall be listed in the Government Blue Pages of the phonebook.For General Elections we should have a guidebook including Candidate Profiles,as we have for the local government elections,plus the various Political Party Manifestoes.If political parties want to get their case to the voters a good start is to stick their subscription forms in the newspapers,magazines etc.
April 19, 2007 at 8:29 am
Oh,and I forgot,can all of us who support the coalition for open government please put its website on all of our blogsite/website links pages etc as one way of getting further support for it please,thanks.
April 23, 2007 at 9:28 am
The downside with banning anonymous donations is that it allows whomever is in government to trawl through the list of opposition supporters and enact reprisals against them.
For example, if one were in government and really really really keen on staying in power for power’s sake and had no principles whatsoever other than staying in power, one would constantly go through list of who was donating even a mere $50 to opposition parties and make sure that no one on that opposition supporter list
* received any contracts with government agencies as consultants or contractors, e.g. for IT, health, education, social welfare, road & transport contracts
* were appointed to or promoted into important civil service positions
* were provided (educational) scholarships for their children or grandchildren
etc
June 21, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Hello, Your site is great. Regards, Valintino Guxxi
November 25, 2007 at 3:05 am
Chris
I am interested that you see regulation as necessarily analogous with undemocratic. Particularly as the current scheme, basically unregulated, because authorities and parties turn a blind eye to transgressions, actual or by the intent of the current legislation.
For my part, approximately 20 individuals wielding disproportionate power over voters, manipulation of them, and decit to them is not at all democratic, yet, it is unregulated.
I agree there is a balance to be struck and the current legislation is not quite it, in my opinion. However it’s a start. A debate certain quarters in this country have fought hard to avoid, including some in the Labour Party. It is no surprise to me that some of the same backers of the massive anti-MMP campaign are behind the current Herald-backed anti reform legislation. This small groupp elieve only they know the answer to whatever question they think needs answering, they want to see a previous “Job finished” ( Douglas and Richardsons work) and they think the “people” are too stupid to see that. Mind you, their behind the scenes manipulation, PR and deceit (yes Don Brash, John Key, McCully, English and others all lied, not fudged, not spun, not ommitted but LIED and thus perpetrated a fraud on NZ about what they knew, had done, and intended to do) and the success of it suggests they might be right that we are all stupid, because we believed their lies.
December 17, 2007 at 6:04 pm
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:
March 29, 2008 at 9:40 am
i hope. abcbaefb15 thanks
May 8, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Is it not time to look at the Canadian system of controling electrol finance? If individuals are limited to $1000 and organisations to $5000 in any financial year,parties have to involve far more voters than has been the case historically in either Canada or N.Z. If I donate $1000 to a party in Canada, the party has 30 days to advise the electoral commission of my province of this fact and the information is displayed on the commission’s website. I am not ashamed of people knowing which party I support, so privacy in this matter is not an issue for me. With only 77% of eligable voters casting their votes last time, N.Z. could not be worse off if they adopted the Canadian system. That it means parties have to go out and make converts seems to be a good idea, they work for their money.