Heather Roy's Diary

No donations please, we're Labour

Talk back radio has been running red hot on the subject of state funding for political parties this week. Hosts have asked to see the mandate from the people and lambasted politicians (all lumped in together) for wanting to misuse the public purse - and in my view quite rightly. The proposed $10 million every three years would buy a lot of hip replacements. ACT vigorously opposes any move by Labour to introduce state funding for political parties. Many people already think that political parties receive public money but this is not the case.

The reality is that political parties have been self-funding throughout New Zealand's history. At one point Members of Parliament did not even draw salaries although this was changed at Labours instigation as it was felt that a lack of salary confined the job to the landed gentry.

In today's parliament MPs are not only paid by the taxpayer but also hire staff courtesy of the state. Constituency MPs are entitled to two electorate agents (working outside Parliament) and one secretary and list MPs have one of each. There is also a "Leader's budget" which covers such things as research staff and press secretaries. There has traditionally been a tight restraint on what the staff in parliament are allowed to do. Taxpayers' money is not allowed to fund ventures to secure votes or to raise party funds. In other words an MP should be able to communicate with constituents and deal with injustices. However, taxpayers' money is not supposed to be used to advance the career of the MP or the interests of the party.

In parallel to the parliamentary system each political party can run its own organisation to promote itself. This organisation is supposed to be kept separate from the parliamentary wing of the party. If you ring the head office of a party and get put through to the parliamentary unit it looks shonky. There are pages of rules on these matters but most MPs thought they boiled down to 3 things:

*Any publication paid for by the taxpayer had to bear the Parliamentary Crest.

*Any such publication could not ask for donations.

*Any such publications could not ask for votes.

The party organisations could, however publish whatever they wanted provided it wasn't obscene or seditious. In the old days when National and Labour dominated under First Past the Post National tended to get money from business and the Labour Party from the trade unions.

The latest Auditor-General's report drew a much tighter line as to what taxpayers' money could be used for. Few escaped criticism but the most outrageous breach of the rules was the use of the Prime Minister's Leader's budget to pay for the "Pledge Cards". The pledge cards were naked electioneering and Helen Clark wrongly spent over $800,000. The Prime Minister promised to repay the money but seven months later the debt remains outstanding. It is entirely possible that the Labour Party doesn't have the money. This week, after weeks of swirling rumours and speculation, it has come up with the scheme that political parties should be taxpayer funded.

The Prime Minister is currently in Europe including visiting Valencia to observe the preparations for the Americas Cup and whilst safely in Spain the hapless Justice Minister Mark Burton was left to announce that the Labour Party thinks that it would be a good idea to fund political parties from taxation. His press release makes interesting reading http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=28956. The first six paragraphs talk about transparency, accountability and fairness. Perfectly reasonable, but then he abandons his principles in the seventh paragraph to tell that his scheme is to fund political parties from the public purse.

Funding political parties has always been problematic. Tony Blair is currently facing a storm of bad publicity over the sale of honours such as knighthoods. This is not a new phenomenon. Lloyd George took a lot of criticism for selling honours although he once commented that it was the "cleanest" way to raise money. The fear is that companies could "buy" lucrative government contracts by donating a suitably large amount to the correct party. The Americans call the nexus between government and industry "The Golden Zone".

Labours $10m State Funding Proposal

Details of Labour's opportunistic swindle have been leaked to the press and include financing political parties to the tune of $2 per vote, up to 20 percent of the vote at the previous election, thereafter $1 per vote to a cap of 30 percent and funding would be indexed to the Consumer Price Index. Using the 2005 election as a base National and Labour would receive around $1.1 million each a year, NZ First $260,000, the Greens $240,000 and ACT $69,000.

Other changes would include:-

* Cutting anonymous donations to parties from $10,000 to $5,000. * Cutting anonymous donations to individuals from $1,000 to $500. * Ban donations by foreigners. * Cap third party spending at $60,000 nationally and $2,000 in an electorate but Unions and companies would be exempt when communicating with members or shareholders. * Extend the start date for official campaigning (currently 3 months before an election) to January 1 of election year. * Create a special search warrant for suspected illegal practices. * Require any candidate who spends more than 75 percent of the spending limit to have the expenses audited.

In the interests of fairness, accountability and transparency New Zealanders deserve a referendum on this one Labour isn't listening to the people - they seem to have learnt nothing from the 85 percent kiwi opposition to the anti-smacking bill. This week the people are saying no and calls of "Where's the mandate?" are entirely appropriate. Minister Burton should have stopped at paragraph 6 of his media release.

ENDS

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