Mouth meet money, money meet mouth

DPF has posted about parliament’s spending rules. And while his post is mildly interesting (hey, thank Zeus it’s not yet another ‘ditto Audrey Young’ piece) what’s more interesting is National’s desperate efforts to keep the focus on Labour’s perceived misdeeds around parliamentary spending and not on more significant electoral risks. Why is that do you think?

OK, National’s got some ammunition: The EFB…the pledge card…yadda, yadda. Problem is, I don’t think it’s as bigger calibre as National thinks. Hey, I am sure this stuff has some public interest - I am just not sure it’s a massive public concern.

What intrigues me is how coy National has been about the robustness of rules around anonymous donations - an issue I am sure the public has a strong interest.

When people (and I mean real people) imagine threats to our democratic process they think about the dangerous influence of powerful moneyed interests on the political process and not necessarily Parliament’s hazy spending rules. Let’s face it, most people already think Parliament is a sty full of politicians with their noses in the a tax-funded trough and revelations about how politicians use (or misuse) parliamentary allowances just deepens the prejudice. But there is real public disquiet about the idea of shadowy figures slipping brown envelopes of cash to political leaders in order to secure some secret undertaking.

When pressed about the influence of anonymous donors, DPF and National attempt to distract by drawing some sort of equivalency between anonymous donations and Labour’s relationship with the union movement. But hang on, Labour is upfront about its long-standing relationship with unions. Hell, Labour’s roots come straight out of the labour movement. That’s why it’s called “the Labour Party”.

So, aside from National’s paranoia about unions, I just don’t see how this is a valid counter to the concern about the millions of dollars National receives from hidden donors. I mean, I know who the EMPU is and I think its motivations for gifting $20,000 to Labour last year are pretty self-evident. But who is behind last year’s Russell McVeagh Trust donation of $40,000 to National? Drug companies? Tobacco companies? Media interests? Telecommunication companies? Toy manufacturers? Who knows? What undertakings did they get for their $40,000? Who knows?

This issue is not all one way traffic, either. Labour has also benefited from anonymous donations too (just not to the extent that National has). That’s why, if National were really genuine about trying to fix our election laws it would have placed the anonymous donations on the table.

I know its an idea floated elsewhere, but you have to wonder if National was genuinely concerned about straightening up our electoral finance laws - why doesn’t it take a principled stand on anonymous donations? National needn’t even wait for the Labour-led government to ‘get’ this issue. National could publicly swear-off anonymous donations. Why doesn’t National put its money where its proverbial mouth is?

Tags: elections