Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:27 am, October 6th, 2011 - 124 comments
In the last few days Key has refused to accept responsibility for NZ’s credit downgrades, stated that he is “not concerned in the slightest” about his possible breach of electoral law, and used an unfortunate incident in Parliament to launch an ugly attack on Labour. John Key is no leader.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:19 pm, August 25th, 2011 - 71 comments
The “authorised by” promoter statement has become a political tool. Intended to prevent anonymous campaigns, now political parties, particularly National, try to find materials that are unambiguously from another party but lacking a promoter statement and try to get them defined as election ads. There’s no democratic principal there, just gotcha politics.
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 21st, 2009 - 13 comments
It’s a pretty special situation where you get praise just for not cheating but John Armstrong heaps it on Simon Power today. Power has gone with the only acceptable structure for a vote on MMP. A two-stage decision where we first decide whether we want change and indicate our preferred alternative then, if a majority […]
Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 5:02 pm, September 28th, 2008 - 53 comments
National have quietly released their policy on electoral law and have promised to abolish the Maori seats once treaty claims are finished, repeal the Electoral Finance Act and run a referendum on MMP. These all represent substantial changes to the way our democracy operates. I’ll be very interested to see what the Maori Party make […]
Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:45 am, September 8th, 2008 - 8 comments
In 1993, the then National government reluctantly implemented the MMP system by putting in the Electoral Act 1993. This was an act that had some serious flaws, some of which were fixed in the Electoral Finance Act of 2008. One of the Electoral Act’s innovations appeared to be designed to make sure that the true […]
Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 4:14 pm, May 21st, 2008 - 139 comments
It seems National has succeeded in the first step of its campaign to muzzle the EPMU and the fifty thousand workers it represents. Over at the bog our mate Davey is crowing about the high court win that recognises the union as a legal person for the purposes of the act. This still means that […]
Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:56 am, May 18th, 2008 - 120 comments
The Sunday Star Times reports National is keen to have a referendum on MMP. As you would expect Peter Shirtcliffe has been involved in lobbying the Nats for this policy. It’s just as AYB predicted. I’m sure the advertising agencies will be rubbing their hands together in glee. I would imagine we’ll hear a lot […]
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 9:50 am, May 1st, 2008 - 52 comments
The Electoral Commission has published the parties’ donation returns for 2007. It is worth noting from the outset that under the electoral law then in force only donations over $10,000 had to be declared and anonymous donations, including the use of anonymising trusts, were legal. Labour has the largest return, at $1,030,446.39. But $700,000 was […]
Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 5:36 pm, January 24th, 2008 - 100 comments
After Brash and the extreme right were exposed in The Hollow Men the Nats changed their leader hoping for a fresh start. What’s becoming apparent is that National’s shady backers haven’t changed. The policy and the cash are coming from the same people they always have – people like Peter Shirtcliffe who’s evidently now helping […]
Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 1:02 pm, November 14th, 2007 - 63 comments
Interesting to see National Party blogger David Farrar is inciting his readers to start a political party to bypass/oppose the Electoral Finance Bill. Even more interesting is the fact that his rabid hoard are already calling for him to be its leader. Here at The Standard we couldn’t agree more – if anyone has the […]
Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 3:38 pm, August 25th, 2007 - Comments Off on Fairer electoral funding
Today in the Dom: Tracy Watkins gets National Party blogger David Farrar to coauthor share his views in an article on the Electoral Finance Bill. The Nats are campaigning hard against changes to the Act. You would too if you had as much to lose. The loopholes in it nearly allowed them to buy the […]
Written By: John A - Date published: 1:29 pm, August 23rd, 2007 - Comments Off on One law for the National Party
John can’t seem to get his story straight (again). Since he claims to support the concept of ‘one law for all’ let’s start with that. Under the Electoral Act you can reside in one place only. Under the Companies Act you cannot make a statement that is knowingly false or misleading. In October 2002 Key […]
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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