Funding from the many, for the few

The premise that departmental advertising gives the incumbent government an unfair advantage needs examining:

Isn't such advertising needed so people know the services they have a right to access exist? Yes

Is this advertising really poltically biased? No. (Look at the Kiwisaver ads, they don't exactly trumpet Kiwisaver as the greatest thing since sliced bread and say we should thank Labour for it.)

Is there another mechanism to prevent departmental advertising being used for political purposes? Yes, the Auditor-General for starters.

Given these answers, it doesn't seem departmental advertising unjustly advantages the incumbent. _________________________

Also, the unions do not give huge amounts to Labour, and they openly declare it when they do (unlike a number of rich businessmen who back other parties). Seven unions representing over 100,000 workers gave the Labour Party $144,000 in 2005, less than 4% of Labour's election expenses. Toll, Westpac, and SkyCity gave both the major parties $115,000 in total - check out http://www.elections.org.nz/parties/donations_summary.html#gen1 _________________________

It is a shame though that nothing has been done to crack down on large secret donations - Owen Glenn puts his name to his money, so any direct benefit he receives from a Labour government would be open to criticism as cash-for-policy, but who put that $1.75 million into the National Party's coffers via trusts, and what do they expect to get in return?

I truly don't care who gives to a political party. I will judge parties on their policies and how well they deliver on them.

What I do object to is parties using my tax dollars to promote themselves and restricting the ability of other people to spend their money as they see fit.

I would rather see NO tax dollars spent on the election campaign, but remove all limits on spending so political parties and third parties can spend as much as they want to - on TV or via any other medium.

The funding for parties would then reflect the amount they could raise. This is a reasonable indication of their popularity or otherwise.

And Sam, the advertising we have seen recently from the government was a lurid red and featured the Labour logo far more strongly than the government department or ministry. You could not honestly say it was not designed to link Labour strongly to the supposed benefits being advertised. This was far more than merely providing information.

Colin's analysis is pretty accurate. The Electoral Reform Bill has definitely ended up as a highly partisan approach, when one might hope for - but not expect - a less self-serving one. There's nothing really in Labour's bill about fairness - so Colin is entirely correct that it will do the opposite of its intention of restoring faith in the electoral process.

And, yes, the use of governmental advertising is a huge problem for fairness. Labour and National governments have again and again misused their publicity resources for partisan advantage. For examples, check out Part 4b of my blog post entitled 'Myth 11: Parliamentary resources are not routinely used for party political purposes': http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2007/04/myth_11_parliam.html

Basically this 'expedient' bill illustrates how fraught and difficult party finance reform is. Whenever a government attempts to clamp down and tighten regulations on political activity it almost inevitably leads to more problems and unfairness than it was supposed to fix.

Cheers

Bryce

The comments made by Linda Wright are very seductive, and highlight exactly why we should have state election funding.

It has to be acknowledged that some policies will benefit specific lobby groups. Therefore, therein lies opportunity for interests to use the money they donated to Party A, to push Party A to enact reforms that are sympathetic to their interests.

Obviously, in small amounts, relative to other fundraising and total allowable spending, this is not so much of a problem. But with porous donation declaration clauses, and no limits on third party advertising, the electorate would be swamped by a campaign funded by those people who want reforms to benefit them. Elections are supposed to be fair.

Only state funding achieves this. The bill referred to above is pathetic, and should ban all funding except what was given by the state as election advertising, so that state funding becomes a fact, and then parties must agree to raise thresholds in order to better portray their platforms.

There are some errors in your post. The Cabinet Manual and Cabinet Office Circulars make clear that government departments curb their policy advertising in the run-up to an election, meaning that the incumbency advantage to which you refer does not accrue during election campaigns. Also, you suggest the government doesn’t intend to deal with the issue of Parliamentary Service funding and spending until after the next election. That is incorrect – their public statements yesterday show that they will deal with that issue later this year, before the interim arrangements expire.

More broadly, it would be good if responses to the Government’s proposals in this area will take the form of constructive counter-proposals rather than simply criticism. I'm sure the Bill will be debated and amended and (hopefully) improved at the Select Committee stage, but this can only happen when there are suggested improvements to consider.

Linda Wright makes some excellent points. To put it other way, ultimately the best way to deal with parties adopting unattractive political policies due to donations is simply not to vote for them. If, for example, Labour is encouraged by big business donations to outlaw the right to strike (sounds fanciful? well actually, Labour's ERA has outlawed many of the previously legal abilities to strike), then you don't vote Labour - regardless of why they adopted that policy. The Act party can get as much business funding as it wants to push its discredited New Right policies, but it doesn't seem to be helping it much, does it?

And what's so wrong with having parties being influenced by business, unions, or other groups? I think this is a positive thing. It'd be great if we had a left-wing party bankrolled by workers that was clearly left-wing and a right-wing party bankrolled by business. That would give a proper electoral choice that we don't have at the moment.

Jonathan Fraser wants us to have a sterile party system with professional politicians that are entirely independent of societal forces and don't need party members or any real connection with society apart from getting their votes every 3 years. In this scenario (which is actually almost a reality) we have parties that are really just part of the state. Is this really that attractive?

Bryce www.liberation.org.nz

Sally, thanks for your remarks. I accept your point that the Government has said it will consider the parliamentary funding aspects of advertising before the next election. With regards to the Cabinet Office circulars advising departments about curbs on advertising in the run-up to an election, all I can say is they must be widely ignored because both this government and the last one have indulged in massive spend-ups during election year - the most recent being $20 million spent advertising Working for Families in 2005.

Cheers

Colin

In the 2005 General Election, only 47 of the top 120 spending electorate candidates won their seat.

Colin

So we need to control election campaign spending in the interests of democracy. How can this be? The evil vast right wing conspiracy complained bitterly about Labour’s extra $800,000 of election spending in 2005 yet Labour said that such spending didn’t have any effect on the outcome of the election.

Labour can’t have it both ways – either the 2005 election was undemocratic because of uncontrolled spending or there is no need to restrict funding for future elections.

Oh well, I guess it's in the best interest of the Labour Party so we should just move on.

Why let any of them advertise to get votes? Let's have a "no advertising" election campaign. We can listen to speeches, interviews and action in Parliament and make decisions from there - that is if you haven't made your decision already!