Posts Tagged ‘election funding’

ImperatorFish: How Should We Fund Our Political Parties?

Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, July 10th, 2012 - 22 comments

Scott asks: It’s naive to think donors don’t want something in return, so should we have state funding of our political parties? It would remove any suspicion of influence buying, and would cost only a few million dollars per year.

ACT: shamelessly campaigning with your money

Written By: - Date published: 3:46 pm, April 18th, 2008 - 81 comments

Earlier in the week we heard that Heather Roy may have broken the Electoral Finance Act by including party advertising messages in her weekly taxpayer funded newsletters without the required authorisation by ACT’s financial agent. This time round she’s added the necessary authorisation but decided that it’s still ok to bill us for hearing from […]

Herald’s anti-EFA campaign in tatters

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 18th, 2008 - 14 comments

As predicted by The Standard earlier this week, the Press Council has upheld the Coalition for Open Government’s complaint against the NZ Herald’s Electoral Finance Bill campaign. The Press Council found that the Herald’s front-page editorial last year contained a “mis-statement of fact”, which the paper should have promptly corrected. At heart was the paper’s […]

Press Council to uphold complaint against Herald?

Written By: - Date published: 4:11 pm, April 15th, 2008 - 17 comments

Word has it that the Press Council will tomorrow uphold the complaint laid against the New Zealand Herald by the Coalition for Open Government that the Herald’s December 4 front-page editorial headed “Speak now or forever hold your peace in 2008” was misleading. The Herald’s editorial attacking the Electoral Finance Bill implied that anyone who […]

Labour Congress EFA protest

Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, April 14th, 2008 - 21 comments

Jordan Carter’s just posted a photo of what looks like nine EFA protesters having their say outside the Labour Party Congress on the weekend. Looks like there are two journalists and a cameraman in the shot too so if my maths is right that’s a grand total of six genuine protesters. Nice work John.

Bad politics

Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, April 13th, 2008 - 91 comments

National’s current attempt to stop the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union from registering as a third party pretty much proves what we all knew. They have no interest in democracy. Rather than accept the decision of the Electoral Commission and move on they’ve decided to appeal the decision and apply for an injunction to stop […]

Still no apology

Written By: - Date published: 3:42 pm, April 10th, 2008 - 19 comments

Last Tuesday Bill English stood up in Parliament and accused the CTU and the PSA of breaking the Electoral Finance Act. Problem for Bill was he’d got it completely wrong, and as we noted at the time the appropriate course of action was to make a formal apology in Parliament. Well to Bill’s credit he’s […]

National under fire over unauthorised advertising

Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, April 8th, 2008 - 80 comments

Annette King has hit back at National in the House today, producing two items of electoral advertising from them, neither of which is authorised. The first of these is a promotional pamphlet for John Key, the second is their 2005 Broadcasting policy – still available for download on their website, which bears the slogan “Party […]

Davey gets it wrong again

Written By: - Date published: 3:57 pm, April 4th, 2008 - 79 comments

David Farrar’s latest political campaign on behalf of the National Party has, like so many of them before, foundered on the sharp rocks of reality. In an attempt reminiscent of the ramshackle PR fiasco that was the Free Speech Coalition, DPF tried to get the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union’s application for third party status […]

English slapped down by CTU

Written By: - Date published: 11:26 am, April 2nd, 2008 - 17 comments

The Council of Trade Unions has given Bill English a good slapping over his false allegations in Parliament yesterday that the peak union body had broken the Electoral Finance Act. English accused the CTU of failing to include the home address of its financial agent in its application to become a third party, a lapse […]

Free Speech Coalition TV spot

Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, March 10th, 2008 - 12 comments

A trusted source tells us that following their most recent failed EFA protest, Cameron Slater (Whaleoil) and National Party blogger David Farrar might be considering buying TV time as part of their civil disobedience campaign. The production company has evidently worked hard to stay true to the Free Speech Coalition’s messages – the ad’s content […]

Pythonesque

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, March 10th, 2008 - 21 comments

According to the Herald some people marched down Queen Street against the Electoral Finance Act on Saturday. Apparently they were protesting the removal of their right to political expression, which was taken off them as of January first this year. Signs compared the government to Robert Mugabe. One presumes they are unhappy they can no […]

Winston tears Paul Henry a new one

Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, February 29th, 2008 - 30 comments

I’m as sick of the Owen Glenn saga as the next guy, but Winston Peters’ tussle with failed National Party candidate and Close Up presenter Paul Henry last night was highly entertaining. There’s been a bit of comment about the interview around the blogs, so here it is for those who missed it:

NSW Liberals want an Electoral Finance Act

Written By: - Date published: 3:43 pm, February 25th, 2008 - 33 comments

In an ironic twist, the Sydney Morning Herald reports today that the New South Wales Liberal Party has called for reform of campaign financing in Australia’s largest state, citing New Zealand’s Electoral Finance Act as an example of what they would like to see – limits on donations, limits on expenditure, and restrictions on third […]

PM announces plan to tackle graffiti

Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, February 15th, 2008 - 25 comments

Helen Clark has just announced a range of measures aimed at cutting down on graffiti vandalism. Presumably the initiative will be supported by the Nats. Who knows about the Free Speech Coalition though – their position on free speech seems remarkably dependent on who’s doing the speaking. (From yesterday’s Southland Times)

National seeks to stop free speech

Written By: - Date published: 8:56 am, February 15th, 2008 - 100 comments

Vernon Small reports today that National party blogger David Farrar has taken out a complaint against the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union’s registration as a third party under the Electoral Finance Act. Now aside from the fact that the founder of the Free Speech Coalition is trying to use the very legislation he has so […]

SST: Nats call in secret donations

Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, February 4th, 2008 - 40 comments

The Sunday Star Times reported yesterday that “The National Party pulled in 11th-hour funding from its secret trusts and anonymous donors in a bid to escape new election campaign finance rules”. National Party blogger David Farrar dismisses this as “hardly surprising”. It’d be a shame to let transparency get in the way of a bit […]

Granny Herald’s campaign fails

Written By: - Date published: 2:46 pm, January 28th, 2008 - 34 comments

Hidden away today at the bottom of the Herald’s story on further data from the latest DigiPoll is the news that only 3.8% of those surveyed rate the Electoral Finance Act as a vote influencing issue. You can just about feel the Herald’s despair that despite an unprecedented, wholly unbalanced and misleading campaign against the […]

Shadbolt launches “Freedom of Sleaze” campaign

Written By: - Date published: 8:10 pm, January 27th, 2008 - 20 comments

Terrible Tim has launched another campaign to attack the Electoral Finance Act by using as much sexual double-entendre as possible for Truth’s Page 2 readers. However this campaign’s main aim is to double the weekly’s circulation by the end of the year, in which case the paper’s owner will give $5,000 to the campaign against […]

Same old faces, same old tactics

Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, January 23rd, 2008 - 251 comments

Well it looks like Free Speech Coalition founder Cameron Slater has taken a break from stalking John Minto and photoshopping underage bloggers’ faces onto porn and decided to finally publish the Coalition’s updated donors list (and only a month after he said he would). Interestingly, a “P Shirtcliffe” is listed as having donated $5000. Now […]

They just don’t learn

Written By: - Date published: 1:38 pm, January 22nd, 2008 - 109 comments

I see the Free Speech Coalition hasn’t learned anything from the ramshackle PR fiasco that was their launch and have posted up another billboard in Invercargill today, this time featuring Robert Mugabe and criticising the government’s ‘silencing’ of Mayor Shadbolt, who is ironically one of the least silent people in the country at the moment. […]

Shadbolt campaign funded by Hollow Men

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 pm, January 18th, 2008 - 96 comments

Remember how I asked who was funding Tim Shadbolt’s campaign to “bring down the government”? Turns out the Southland Times was interested too and they’ve found out his move to deliberately break electoral law is being propped up by the Talley brothers, who appear to have a bit of a history of that themselves. Now […]

Follow the money

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, January 14th, 2008 - 78 comments

I see Shadbolt is back on the blackmail bandwagon again with today’s Herald claiming he’s aiming to break the Electoral Finance Act (though I’m still not entirely sure why as the last time I checked the EFA and the EFTS system shared nothing other than their first two letters). The thing is neither the Herald, […]

What’s National cooking up for 2008?

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, January 13th, 2008 - 195 comments

Well, I saw my first Farrar billboard in the real two days ago and I gotta tell you I laughed. I was with a companion who is politically aware and has a pretty good idea about the EFB and when I pointed it out to her she was baffled. When I told her the story […]

ODT ad from today

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 pm, January 9th, 2008 - 70 comments

Shadbolt jailed for bullshit

Written By: - Date published: 5:59 pm, January 1st, 2008 - 31 comments

Some years ago Mayor Shadbolt spent a week in Mt Crawford prison for refusing to pay a fine for saying “bullshit” in public. Now our intrepid hero says he wants to break the Electoral Finance Act, but can’t because he says it would be the Invercargill City’s chief executive who might have to go to […]

Electoral Finance Bill passes

Written By: - Date published: 5:25 pm, December 18th, 2007 - 17 comments

PS. If none of this is making sense try lolcats (Wikipedia) or lolnatz (Kiwiblogblog). Also worth noting that Dunne pulled his support at the last minute. His mealy-mouthed speech in which he vainly attempts to justify his fence-sitting is so nonsensical it’s almost worthy of a read.

Dunne folds under pressure

Written By: - Date published: 5:01 pm, December 18th, 2007 - 26 comments

According to reports, Peter Dunne has withdrawn his support for the Electoral Finance Bill at the last minute. Newsroom says: Mr Dunne said over recent weeks it had become clear that many New Zealanders had deep unease about the bill and he had been contacted by hundreds of people. New Zealanders had gone beyond caring […]

ODT on the Electoral Finance Bill

Written By: - Date published: 7:39 pm, December 12th, 2007 - 81 comments

Here’s an article from the ODT. It’s by Simon Cunliffe, “a senior Otago Daily Times journalist”. I’m loathe to reprint it in full but the ODT doesn’t provide full online access to articles. Perhaps the best I can do is to encourage you to subscribe to their digital edition if you enjoy the read. Electoral […]

National filibustering EFB

Written By: - Date published: 12:54 pm, December 6th, 2007 - 42 comments

So it’s official: National is filibustering the Electoral Finance Bill. This really is childish, and it’s directly at odds with what Bill English was telling the public on Morning Report on Tuesday. These were his exact words: “How long the debate takes will be largely up to the government. We don’t intend to filibuster…” It’s […]

Anti-EFB crusader calls for armed revolution

Written By: - Date published: 3:28 pm, December 4th, 2007 - 290 comments

If you thought the Nazi flags and ‘Heil Helen’ signs at Saturday’s march against the Electoral Finance Bill were distasteful, take a look at what far-right political punter and anti-EFB crusader Lindsay Perigo’s been up to. According to Molesworth and Featherston: Attacking the Electoral Finance Bill Mr Perigo recently called for, apparently, armed revolution: “…the […]