Garry Gets it Right on Election Spending!
David Farrar at Kiwiblog posts on last Friday's Victoria University symposium on electoral funding hosted by Transparency International and the VUW Institute of Policy Studies.
Speaker and former Speaker Margaret WIlson and Doug Kidd "spoke", as did the CEO of the Electoral Commission, Helena Catt and former National Party general manager Steven Joyce.
Worker's Party blogger Bryce Edwards was there as well as his old Otago Uni comrade, pro "state funding for political parties" activist and legal academic Andrew Geddis.
The presidents of most, if not all parliamentary political parties were present including ACT's Garry Mallett.
According to David Farrar;
ACT's Gary Mallett was pretty controversial for saying he regarded it as a bad thing to even be discussing limits. He did have useful points (also made by ) that the amount of money a party spends has remarkably little (but some) effect on their vote.
I've got to say I agree with Garry. The bloody cheek of these people even thinking they have a right telling private individuals, where, how and in what amounts they may spend their money in promoting their political ideals.
Currently National and Labour have things so sewn up to their mutual benefit, that it is difficult for smaller parties to get their message heard.
Small parties cannot even buy their own unlimited time on TV and radio. Regardless of the size of their chequebook, they can only buy time proportional to the votes achieved last election. What a shameful scam.
The only electoral spending reform we need is the abolition of such heinous controls on the exercise of free speech.
Speaker and former Speaker Margaret WIlson and Doug Kidd "spoke", as did the CEO of the Electoral Commission, Helena Catt and former National Party general manager Steven Joyce.
Worker's Party blogger Bryce Edwards was there as well as his old Otago Uni comrade, pro "state funding for political parties" activist and legal academic Andrew Geddis.
The presidents of most, if not all parliamentary political parties were present including ACT's Garry Mallett.
According to David Farrar;
ACT's Gary Mallett was pretty controversial for saying he regarded it as a bad thing to even be discussing limits. He did have useful points (also made by ) that the amount of money a party spends has remarkably little (but some) effect on their vote.
I've got to say I agree with Garry. The bloody cheek of these people even thinking they have a right telling private individuals, where, how and in what amounts they may spend their money in promoting their political ideals.
Currently National and Labour have things so sewn up to their mutual benefit, that it is difficult for smaller parties to get their message heard.
Small parties cannot even buy their own unlimited time on TV and radio. Regardless of the size of their chequebook, they can only buy time proportional to the votes achieved last election. What a shameful scam.
The only electoral spending reform we need is the abolition of such heinous controls on the exercise of free speech.
posted by Trevor Loudon at
6/21/2007 03:24:00 PM
1 Comments:
That's pretty much what I just wrote in my POLS218 (Politics+Media) exam essay.
Hope my lecturer isn't a lefty :D
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