The most refreshing aspect of the Independent Electoral Review report into our electoral system are the proposed changes to electoral donations.
Review chair Deborah Hart says they want “a contest of ideas, not a contest of cash”. Indeed.
Panel chairwoman Deborah Hart said many submitters were uneasy about the size of political donations and the idea donors might be buying influence.
Under the panel’s recommendations the maximum that could be donated to a party and candidate would be $30,000.
Hart disagreed that was a small amount in contrast to the size of donations allowed at present.
“For most New Zealanders they would think that’s a lot of money … and really people are saying they want a contest of ideas, not a contest of cash.”
One could point to many examples of abuses under the current system with former cabinet minister Stuart Nash being just the latest example. Nash received substantial election campaign funding from the forestry sector and this was one of the sectors for which he was responsible.
Public records show just how much Nash has received from the timber sector over the last three elections. In 2020, he declared $19,503 from such parties, in 2017 it was $5000, and in 2014 he declared $31,000.
Nash resigned after he was caught out breaching the cabinet manual by reporting back to his big donors after cabinet meetings giving them insider reports.
Nash wasn’t working for the people – he was working for his donors.
There are numerous other examples where both National and Labour have used sneaky, underhand ways to hide the name of their big donors. Using trusts to collect donations and declaring only the trust donation or using auctions and declaring only the total raised from the auction. Former cabinet minister and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff used this subterfuge to declare a $366,000 auction declaration to an election campaign which did not specify individual donations or purchases. It included the sale at an auction of a book for $150,000.
Former Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel used a similar subterfuge – an auction – to hide large donations to two mayoral campaigns, In some cases donors paid thousands of dollars for bottles of wine but Dalziel failed to declare their names as required under electoral law.
In other cases MPs have held “art auctions” where the artists are named as the donors rather than the wealthy donors who buy the art works.
We have a system where big donors want to remain anonymous and politicians will go out of their way to oblige.
Under the proposed changes only registered voters would be able to donate to political parties and these would be capped at $30,000 for any one party and its candidates. And the threshold for disclosing names would drop from $15,000 to $1000. Gone would be donations from companies, trusts, unions or foreign nationals. It won’t stop groups like the Exclusive Brethren raising $1,000,000 for a right wing party then splitting it into 33 individual donations from 10 named members of the church who enrol as voters. More work is needed and ultimately we must end donations to political parties and candidates altogether in favour of modest funding for candidates to promote their policies.
So the electoral review proposals aren’t perfect – they still tilt the field towards the big end of town – but they are a significant step forward.
The other proposals to lower the voting age to 16 and drop the threshold from 5% to 3.5% would also be a good steps but are unlikely to get parliamentary support however because Labour and National will form a grand coalition to defeat them.
Doesn’t a $30,000 cap make it a little too easy to skirt the regulations? A true “contest of ideas” would only have donations coming from Joe Bag-o-Donuts who donated $30.
It also won’t make much difference if you don’t smash up the press monopolies, the broadcasting cartel, the Silicon Valley barons, and state censorship of Internet networks.
Now that’s what I call a proper fucking Post. Bravo! John Minto.
However, still one’s beating heart for a moment and imagine the shit that’s gone down in our history before the scum sold our stuff and things. Just imagine…?
Before *neo-liberalism we had stuff and things and people were in houses and homes and there were no hungry kids or dangerous and dysfunctional marginalised addict-people. Our farmers were world leaders and I’m not going to write; ‘in their fields’. We produced enough food annually to feed 40 million while they exported billions of dollars worth of wool, before the greed of a few con artists and common crooks fucked that up too.
We were an exporting country ( I loath the term ‘Nation’. I get up a little bit of sick every time I read or hear the word ‘nation’ when describing us few Kiwis.) But now? What are we now? Empty fields and impoverished farmers. We, as a country of people, have never been in a more perilous position. The next thing the Zombie Hoards will sell, the only thing that’s left to sell, is the very land under our feet. The nano second we become a republic, even without the bananas, we’re fucked. We’re done for.
Never mind the now, so much @ John Minto, it’s the days, weeks, months and years leading up to this point. And if I was cynical I’d say the attempts by Deborah Hart is a rushed and urgent patch-up job to hide the true crimes and they’re the crimes leading backwards into our history that’s given us this awful ‘today’.
**14 multi-billionaires and 3118 multi-millionaires with in excess of $50 million each. Four now foreign owned banks stealing $180,00 a second in record net profits annually. To achieve that kind of polite mafia activity requires patience and focus. It requires inbreeding and back handing too.
Deborah Hart’s trying to sanitise the last 140 years of the most blatant, politically criminal whole sale theft of a first-world country’s assets you could point a gavel at.
We desperately need a public, Royal Commission of Inquiry. Otherwise [this] will get buried as the Stars and Stripes are hoisted.
* Neo-liberalism. Another term for crooks doing crooked shit.
**Figures drawn from The Daily Blog print.
30.000 isn’t a cap
All the West has now to save itself is MMT to Inflate Away Debt?!
They can’t win at war.
They don’t know how to not be colonialistic.
They don’t recognised that their reign of terror as an empire is over.
When the worlds largest economy is dying from self-inflicted debt mountains that are unsustainable.
The rest of the world that is suffering from Stockholm syndrome and clinging-on to the sinking ship, are bound to go down with the ship.
Knowing when to bailout is something that needs to be seriously considered. Now. Or between now and probably the end of 2026.
That’s when the US debt mountain becomes unsustainable and impossible for them to recover from as by then 40%+ of the worlds trading nations will be trading in alternative currencies other than the US dollar. Including oil trading by OPEC, Saudi, Russia and the major consumers India, China & Pacific-Asia.
Then there is the resellers of that same oil. The West has no alternative or supply of that same quantity.
And EVs won’t come near replacing oil, fossil fuels.
Time to think about joining the BRIICS+
western free enterprise will never be eclipsed by authoritarian corruption. Brazil and India will be “western” soon enough – that just leaves RetrogradeCantS
“Gone would be donations from companies, trusts, unions or foreign nationals. It won’t stop groups like the Exclusive Brethren raising $1,000,000 for a right wing party then splitting it into 33 individual donations from 10 named members of the church who enrol as voters.” J.M.
It also won’t stop groups like unions raising $1,000,000 for a left wing party splitting it into twenty thousand individual donations from twenty thousand named members of the union enrolled as voters.
NZCTU
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU or CTU; Māori: Te Kauae Kaimahi) is a national trade union centre in New Zealand. The NZCTU represents 360,000 workers, and is the largest democratic organisation in New Zealand.
What would an overall limit on donations be. to be spent on advertising and meetings and explanatory booklets about party priorities for action? What would be a reasonable sum – no more than $…? which would apply to the major parties of course. Smaller ones would have it as an upper limit which usually they couldn’t attain. It would make a more level field. Same amount of time on group interviews. Same amount of time for interviews with the larger and more likely contenders.
And no to all news and advertising and interviews and surmising for the day and night before the election.
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