Prime Minister Moonbeam clearly broke the law on Friday on the radio show that he chose to run instead of dealing with the downgrade crisis. The law is clear: Key wasn’t allowed to make political statements. He did. He made a promise on broadcasting policy and gave the Nats’ first cut spin-line on the downgrade.
The law bans any radio programme that:
(a) encourages or persuades or appears to encourage or persuade voters to vote for a political party or the election of any person at an election; or
(b) encourages or persuades or appears to encourage or persuade voters not to vote for a political party or the election of any person at an election;..
First, Key promised to “talk to someone important” about Coronation Street moving time (man, this guy will jump on any bandwagon going. He doesn’t know a thing about rugby, league, or Coronation Street but he’ll pretend he cares). That was, of course, a political promise to act in his capacity as Prime Minister. And it was clearly intended to encourage people to vote for him and his party.
Second, Key said of the credit downgrade “hey, it’s private sector debt”. Again, it’s clearly an attempt to persuade people to vote for his party by not blaming them for the credit downgrade.
Labour has laid a complaint with the Electoral Commission. If the Commission finds a breach, they can refer it to the Police. The Police have investigated similar instances in the past. We can expect no less from them this time.
PS. Watch for Farrar and Whaleoil, once they get their lines, to label this as Labour having no sense of fun and being jealous. That’s why National does things like Electoral Commission complaints via it’s proxies … like Farrar and Whaleoil.
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