People reading my comments and my blog will know that I refer to this as the “Overseas billionaries’ EFA exemption” (OBEE). You can I can’t, for example, buy an entire section in the Herald two weeks running to advance our political champion’s cause…..but a company like APN could do it if they wanted to.

I would have thought it was up to John Key to tell us who he is…..but that’s just me.

With the OBEE, you can campaign all and all night for your favoured party or candidate as long as you’re “Media”.

In Canada, where EFA-style laws have been in place for several years, the process of political elites capturing media outlets to by-pass campaign spending restrictions is well-advanced.

So as this ad is clearly not an electin ad, it would be difficult for SP to state how it clearly is an election ad, given that it is Parliament’s express intention that ads like this should be able to be run without them being declared election advertisements.

Back to the drawing board for The Standard.

I/S does not appear to be misrepresenting the position I see argued here at all.

Idiot says that folks at the Standard are “attacking an EMA campaign against the government’s KiwiSaver amendments as a breach of the EFA.”

Well, yeah. You are. When Mr Pierson says “This ad will also be in breach of the EFA” and when you describe the ads as “deliberate breaches of the law” and argue that the EMA should be “held up to scrutiny” for it, you are attacking an EMA campaign against the government’s KiwiSaver amendments as a breach of the EFA.

As for this being issues advertising: c’mon. They’re attacking Mallard over an issue, they’re doing it months out from the election, and they’re trying to get people to lobby the govt over it. It seems pretty cut-n-dried to me.

Idiot’s claim is that attacking people for breaching EFA when they are engaged in issues advertising is exactly what Farrar and associates predicted would happen. Now some here are arguing that in this case this issues advertising *is* electioneering and thus falls foul of the EFA. Yup, that’s exactly what Farrar et al said people would say: their prediction was that issues advertising would get caught in up in the EFAs net because you can’t separate it out from electioneering.And thus you are partaking in helping this prediction come true.

Fortunately, the EFA is actually a bit more sensible than people here are claiming, so it isn’t actually being breached, and so Mr Farrar et al’s more hysterical complaints will prove ill-founded.

I really struggle with this In fact part of my submission on the EFB was that the EC needed to provide training and information to organisations about what was legal and effective issue advertising, cos the whole situation is confused.

If I were to spend $100k on full page ads in the week before polling saying “Stop Key cutting benefits and wages!!” in huge letters and then go on to rant for column or two about how bad Key’s policies are, but which don’t say “vote” anywhere and do include a list of political leaders phone numbers under the heading “Call” at the very end – I reckon that would have to be election advertising. Does that meet your criteria?

Where, between that and me running $100k of full page ads in January talking about how important ensuring benefits rise to keep in pace with inflation (which I think is not an election ad), does the line lie?

Your quote is from one of the subparas of 5(2). To be an electoral advertisement it has to meet one of the criteria of 5(1) and not meet any of the criteria in 5(2).

I think everyone agrees that it doesn’t meet 5(2) (as you have shown), the question is whether it meets 5(1):

5. Meaning of election advertisement
(1) In this Act, election advertisement—
a) means any form of words or graphics, or both, that can reasonably be regarded as doing 1 or more of the following:
(i) encouraging or persuading voters to vote, or not to vote …
(ii) encouraging or persuading voters to vote, or not to vote …
b) includes—
(i) a candidate advertisement; and
(ii) a party advertisement.

2) The following are not election advertisements:

So whether it can reasonably regarded as encouraging or persuading voters to vote or not vote is the key test.

THis part seems specific to the EMAs ad.

..any editorial material, other than advertising material, in a periodical that is written by, or is selected by or with the authority of, the editor solely for the purpose of informing, enlightening, or entertaining readers:…

Any sort of advertisement seem to be excluded from the informing and enlightening category.

However looking for their next ad where they crticise Key for his attack on workers rights in taking out the compulsory 4 weeks annual leave… yeah right

L

There may well be one or two posters who have different opinions they haven’t expressed, but that’s hardly relevant to I/S’s argument.

Remember, all the EMA has to do is register as a third party and then stick to the third party spending limit, it’s not overly burdensome.

With that in mind, your statements such as “No one here is against issues advertising” seems to be guilty of what I do – assigning a collective voice.

Incidentally I do not think they are election advertisements.

Captcha: contract good-will – sounds like an employment policy

Some facts:

The Standard has not laid a complaint against the EMA. SP was simply sent a tip-off from a reader and laid out the facts. The tone of the post was not “Ha ha let’s fuck the EMA”, it was “what a bunch of incompetent clowns.”

No one here is against issues advertising. No one here thought the CAFCA postcards should count election advertising.

No one is trying to stop the EMA from expressing themselves or buying advertising. But it’s fair to point out if they are pretty blatantly breaching electoral law for no apparent reason.

And that’s the point. It’s not the EFA stopping the EMA advertising. It’s the fact they’ve chosen not to follow the rules.

Personally I’d encourage the EMA to register as a third party and properly authorise their advertisements. It’s as basic as that.

Nope, any more than the CAFCA postcards did. If it tells people outright to lobby politicians, doesn’t mention voting

Would it make a difference if the election was closer? If the EMA were to run this ad three weeks before the election (ignoring, for a moment, the fact amendment will be passed by then), would it be more election ad-ish then?

A reasonable person might think so. However, again I’ll stress that the law must be interpreted through the lens of the BORA, which combined with the clear parliamentary intent to provide wide scope for issue advertising and agenda-setting, means that the bar is probably quite high.

if you want a definitive ruling, complain. But I seriously don’t think the EC will agree with you, and it is a complete foot-bullet politically.

The way they have stated it their ‘issue’ is stopping mallard. ( who knows why?)

And the way to stop him ? 4 months out from an election?

maybe the EMA is going to register as a political party but they want to breach the limit by getting this out of the way before they register!