Petty

Farrar and his mate Stephen Franks are trying to get the Hollow Men play classified as an electoral advertisement. A petty move from a petty pair of tories.

Now, if a play, or a book, or any other form of communication is an attempt by someone to influence your vote, you ought to have the right to know who that person or group is so that you can judge their motivations when assessing the information they give you. That’s what the Electoral Finance Act does by requiring authorising statements on political advertisements. So, no problem with a play potentially being an electoral advertisement under the EFA and needing authorisation.

But the Hollow Men is clearly not a political advertisement. It deals with historic events and contains no advice on parties now, their policies, or how one should vote. It is a portrayal of factual events with a splash of comedy meant to inform and entertain.

This is just another attempt by National to shut down a story that exposed the dark secretive side of National. It was that secretive nature and attempt to rort the the people’s will through secret political campaigns that got National in hot water in the first place and led the the introduction of the EFA. National doesn’t want it’s secret side exposed, hence it’s opposition both to the Hollow Men book and play, and the EFA.

You would have thought they would have learnt by now that secret agenda have no place in our electoral process, but they haven’t.

(incidentally, Farrar was closely associated with Franks’ run to be National’s candidate in Wellington Central and, now Franks is candidate, Farrar is expected to be his campaign manager. Judging by Farrar’s past record in political activism - remember the Free Speech Coalition? - this could be the death knell for Franks campaign)

More On Secret Donations

BigBruv has asked me who “Labour’s secret donors are”.  So I thought I would find out.  Here is a list of donations over the reporting limit then in force ($10,000, the Electoral Finance Act has reduced it) given to political parties anonymously or via trusts to disguise the donors’ identities in 2006:

ACT: $0

Greens: $0

Labour: $0

Maori: $0

New Zealand First: $0

United Future: $0

Progressives: $0

National: $150,166

They’re Lucky They’ve Got Money

(and God on their side).

Because they sure don’t have any nous.  Below is an email sent to Ann Tolley, National MP, from Stan Blanch on behalf of a group calling itself ‘Give New Zealand A Fair Go’, the title is “exclusivebreth onto it”.

So, it looks like the Exclusive Brethren has created a new vehicle for campaigning for National and Stan Blanch is leading it (talent deficit?).  I shouldn’t be giving tips to the enemy but, guys, ‘Give New Zealand a Fair Go’ is a terrible name, no-one will have any idea of what you are about.

What a mess of a letter: half-thought out ideas, off-topic comments, and wild language (it’s not even clear why he has written to Tolley).  What kind of person rants on about airbrushing and pledge cards in a private email to an ally?  Not an astute one. 

Stan Blanch is a board member for the Financial Planners and Insurance Advisers Association and is linked to the Exclusive Brethren.  The insurance industry was one of National’s most important covert backers at the 2005 election, as was the EB.

God knows why Shadbolt is associating himself with these people (he says he has talked to them but has no idea what they want him to contribute).  When did he lose his perspective?  When did protecting his personal fiefdom become more important than New Zealand having progressive, Left Government?

Presumably, the ‘former Prime Minister’ is Mike Moore (Jim Bolger is too sensible to get involved with this lot and Shipley has dropped from sight) but getting him on board with them sounds more like a dream than anything concrete.

I find it interesting that National has chosen to publish this letter and is attempting to distance themselves from another disastrous Exclusive Brethren campaign.  Maybe they learnt their lesson after getting their fingers burned last time.

Disgrace

Former Herald owner and National Party activist Michael Horton, one of New Zealand’s richest men, has registered himself as a third party so that he can campaign against the Government next year.

So far, so good: The electoral finance regime ensures that all New Zealanders can participate in political debate, as long as they do not attempt to do so secretly and do not attempt to use their wealth to distort the democratic will of the people. But what gets my goat is this from Mr Horton:

“I’ve been threatening the family I’m going to have an armband made. Instead of the Star of David, which the poor Jews had to wear, I’m going to have a little armband which says, ‘Registered third party’.”

How dare this man, who has had every privilege in life, owned New Zealand’s most powerful newspaper, and will have no restraint on his ability to participate in political debate except that he must do so within a reasonable limit and not do so anonymously attempt to cast himself as a martyr alongside the millions of jews who the Nazis sought to exterminate.

If that was not enough, he goes on to compare the Electoral Finance Act to the Soviet Regime. This man, whose income is many times that of the ordinary New Zealander, who has the opportunity to voice his opinion on political matters to a sum many times more than normal New Zealanders can dream of being able to afford, has the gall to compare himself to those who suffered under 75 years of Soviet oppression.

Mr Horton, exploiting the suffering of millions for political point-scoring to perserve your privileged place within the New Zealand polity is reprehensible.

You’re a disgrace.

Farrar Thinks You’re Stupid

Davey continues his bizarre approach of writing on an issue and massively distorting his source data, apparently, hoping that his readers won’t follow the links he provides, which undercut his spin.

The latest instance is his post on NZ First’s charity money. Davey says: “NZ First wanting to still find a charity which will take their $158,000 “donation”” and that the Cancer Society, Child Cancer Foundation and New Zealand Red Cross have said they would not take the money (Davey asserts, groundlessly, that these are the three biggest charities). The picture is of NZF making a fool of itself trying to find someone to take its dirty money.

But read the article he’s basing his post on “Charities Lining Up for NZ First Cash” in the Herald and, right from the headline, a very different story emerges. Yes, some charities would not accept the money but other major ones, like the SCPA, would and up to 30 charities have gone to NZF asking if they could be the recipient of the money.

DPF, a tip: stop assuming your audience is too stupid or too lazy to read your sources themselves.

World Ends

Oh, no, wait, it hasn’t.

The Electoral Finance Bill has passed its final reading and will gain the Governor-General’s assent today.  The Kiwiblog Right seems to believe he will refuse to sign, indeed one of the points of the Royal Assent is to prevent grossly unjust laws.  Don’t expect his assent to convince them that the Bill is just though.

The Bill is a good piece of legislation, not perfect (no legislation ever is).  It will accomplish its two primary goals:

restricting the channeling of very large sums to political parties anonymously, meaning the public will no longer be unable to find out who political parties are indebted to.

and forcing groups who want to influence elections to reveal themselves (no more secret parallel campaigns) as well as limiting the amount of money they can use to try to distort the public’s democratic will.

The amendments that have been made substantially improved and clarified the Bill.

The politics of it could certainly have been run better by Labour but, together with the Greens, and New Zealand First, they have faced down a very determined alliance of big money interests - National, ACT, the business lobbies, the secret donors behind Boscawen, and the foreign-owned newspapers.  

By refusing to lose their nerve, these parties have insured that future elections in New Zealand will be more open and free of the corrupting influence of rich, secret groups.

The hollow men will have to come out of the shadows now.  They’re terrified of that, as their vehement opposition to the Bill showed.  It’ll be interesting to see what it revealed when the light of democratic scrutiny is shone upon them.

(PS. Lolnatz on the EFB over at The Standard http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=891)