Green Party claim victory on election funding
With the inclusion of changes negotiated by the Green Party, the Electoral Finance Bill tabled today should allay many of the concerns raised by New Zealanders.
| Third parties | Political parties | ||
| Maximum spend on electioneering during regulated period | $120,000 | $2,400,000 | 3rd party spending is 5% of political party spending |
| Maximum spend before required to list as a third party | $12,000 | na | 10% of the spending limit |
| Total amount of anonymous donations they can recieve through the Electoral Commission | $12,000 | $240,000 | 10% of the spending limit |
| Total mount that a person can donate through the Electoral Commission for electioneering | $1,800 | $36,000 | 15% of the total they can receive in anonymous donations |
| How much they recieve in known donations before disclosure to the public | $5,000 | $10,000 | |
| Limit at which a contributor to a donation must be disclosed to the party, 3rd partyor Electoral Commission | $1,000 | $1,000 |
The Green Party had negotiated strongly with the Government for a number of changes to the Bill to ease the burden on third parties so that there would be no breach of human rights or the right to expression, Green’s Musterer (Whip) Metiria Turei says.
“The 1986 Royal Commission quite correctly said that there was no point in limiting political party spending if other campaign groups were not also limited. Wealthy supporters often drown out the campaigns of ordinary groups with extensive advertising. Elections should be about issues - not about the size of wallets.
“Recent protests have been a little premature given the changes we have secured in the Bill. These changes have been made precisely to protect the freedom of expression and ensure that secret campaigns of millions of dollars do not drown out Kiwi groups and people with legitimate election issues.
“We believe the original Bill, as introduced by the Government, severely restricted the spending of third parties in the campaign and imposed greater burdens on them than political parties. Anonymous donations to third parties were banned but not those to political parties.
“The Greens negotiated a change to that. Under the amended Bill, political parties will also be severely restricted in the value of anonymous donations that they can receive - no more than $240,000 over a whole election period (3 years). The legislation as it stood at the last election allowed for unlimited anonymous donations and during that three-year period before the last election Labour reportedly received $400,000 anonymously and National more than $2 million.
“We negotiated an increase of the maximum third party spending cap from $60,000 to $120,000 and made sure that ordinary kiwis could deliver pamphlets, advertise in local community newspapers and undertake other general electioneering activity without being caught by the legislation.
“We have also protected the donations community and advocacy groups receive, which are intended for their ordinary work and not for electioneering. Before our changes the bill caught virtually every donation to a third party and that was simply ridiculous,” Mrs Turei says.
Protecting freedom of speech and fairer elections
Statement following the reporting back of the Electoral Finance Bill
Metiria Turei, Green MP
Dr. Russel Norman, Green Party Co-leader
19th November 2007
Introduction
Thank you for coming. It is not our custom to hold press conferences when bills are reported back from select committee but there is, quite rightly, a high level of public interest in the EFB and the Green Party welcomes this opportunity to set out our achievements to explain to the voters of New Zealand, and particularly to the 120,000 people who voted Green in 2005. While we by no means happy with all the aspects of this bill, we believe the improvements that the Greens have negotiated protect freedom of speech and make our elections fairer.
Principles
Democracy is a fundamental principle of our society. But democracy does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in a society which is increasingly characterised by inequality of wealth and that inequality of wealth can have a very significant impact on our democracy. As anyone who has seen US democracy in action can testify, this is a major problem. Action on climate change in the US has been held back for years by the financial intervention by the oil and car industries in US elections.
If democracy is to function properly then we need to find a way to protect the equality of the ballot from the inequality of wallet.
We need to find a way to ensure that there is a level playing field in election campaigns, we need to know who is providing the money in election campaigns so we can track its influence, while at the same time we need to protect the right to free speech.
This is why most western democracies have adopted rules to limit the election spending by political parties and interest groups.
The level playing field
A key part of our democracy is the idea of the fair go and the level playing field.
Over the years, New Zealanders have established a series of unique rules and regulations in an attempt to make sure everyone gets a fair go. We have a cap on how much each party can spend in the election campaigning for the party vote – it’s a restriction on the free speech of parties, but a restriction in place so that really wealthy parties can’t dominate the political space. We have a rule that says political parties aren’t even allowed to place ads on TV and radio except with the money allocated by the Electoral Commission – it’s a restriction on the free speech of the parties, but a restriction in place so that wealthy parties don’t dominate the TV and radio with their expensive advertising.
These are good rules, rules that have, at least to some small degree, meant that there is something of a level playing field in elections. Without a level playing field there is no democracy.
In 2005 some real problems emerged with the uneven playing field and we now have to deal with them.
Transparency of funding
But there is another reason why we have rules around money and politics, and that’s because we want our law makers to owe their allegiance in the first instance to the voters, not to those who funded their election campaigns. We don’t want legislators like those in the US who spend all their time worrying about satisfying various wealthy interest groups to make sure that they can raise enough money to run their next election campaign.
And in order to keep our parliamentarians from being beholden to wealthy interest groups that fund their campaigns, we not only restrict how much parties can spend campaigning, we set up rules to make the parties tell us who is providing their funding. We want to keep an eye on who is giving the parties money so we can see if that is affecting the way they use their votes in parliament and the decisions they make in government. If a party receives a donation over $10,000 they have to declare the identity of the donor to the public. Any anonymous donations are supposed to be really anonymous.
And again in 2005, problems emerged with the transparency regime.
Freedom of speech
And at the same time as we ensure we have a fair democracy, we need to protect the freedom of speech of voters and interest groups to put their point of view across. Elections are for the voters and it is essential that the voters get to have a voice. But, we also need to ensure that the spending by one well-resourced group does not drown out the voices of all the other groups and the political parties.
The last election
At the last election we saw some disturbing developments that have seriously undermined attempts by generations of New Zealanders to protect the equality of the ballot from the inequality of wallet.
We saw the Exclusive Brethren run a million dollar advertising campaign that was effectively a ‘Vote National’ campaign. The campaign told voters to change the government, it was in national party blue, and the Exclusive Brethren met with National to discuss these leaflets. Yet this million dollar ‘vote National’ campaign was not included under the cap of the National Party spending. The Exclusive Brethren campaign demonstrated a huge loophole in our law. If we don’t close this loophole then the spending caps on political parties will be rendered meaningless.
Secondly we have seen a big increase in the flow of secret money into National and Labour Party coffers. Over the three years from 2004 to 2006, just looking at donations over $10,000, Labour received $400,000 in anonymous donations and National received $2.2 million from the secret trusts. In spite of the intent of the law making parties reveal the source of their money, it is currently legal for the National Party to know the identity of these donors, but to keep it secret from the public. If we don’t close this loophole then we won’t know who is funding the largest political parties.
Amendments negotiated by the Greens to the EFB
So the Greens are supporting the Electoral Finance Bill in an attempt to deal with some of these problems but only after we negotiated a number of key amendments to protect freedom of speech and fairer elections.
Amendments to protect freedom of speech
1. Alter the definition of election advertising to protect issues advertising
This means that individuals and groups will be free to campaign on the issues that are important to them, regardless of whether one or more parties is also campaigning on the same issue. The Greens come from a campaigning background and we were determined to protect the right of groups to continue to campaign. For example, Greenpeace can continue to campaign against whaling, even though it is a campaign the Green Party has a profile on.
2. Remove the requirement for a statutory declaration for spending less than the threshold
This means that people or groups don’t have to sign a statutory declaration everytime they spend money under the threshold for listing as a third party. It was an unnecessary burden that performed no useful function.
3. Lift the cap on election spending by non-party groups from $60,000 to $120,000
Many groups and individuals engage in election advertising during campaign year. This advertising encourages voters to support parties that adopt certain policy positions. The Bill as introduced limited this spending to $60,000. The Greens have supported amendments that increase this limit to $120,000, 5% of the $2.4m party limit and twice that originally proposed.
4. Lift the spending limit at which a group must list as a third party from $5000 to $12,000
This was important because many groups and people engage in election advertising through pamphlets, newsletters or community newspaper adverts. These ordinary election activities should not require a person or group to have to list as a third party where the spending is under $12,000.
5. Enable under 18 year olds and permanent residents to be able to list as a third party
We fought for the inclusion of this because it is a breach of the rights of a citizen to be prevented from engaging in election advertising activities simply because they are not old enough to vote. This change also means that groups will not be excluded from listing as a third party simply because one member is under 18 years old.
6. Protect donations to groups that are not for election purposes
This means that groups that register as third party participants in the election will not have to declare any donations that are not specifically for election purposes. Groups are entitled to raise and collect money for their regular activities without interference. Only donations given specifically for electioneering will need to be disclosed.
Amendments to ensure fairer elections
7. Severely restrict anonymous donations to political and third parties
The Greens insisted on an anonymous donations regime that will restrict Labour and National’s ability to raise money through anonymous donations. Our policy is that all donations over $1000 should be identified as to the true source – they shouldn’t be listed as anonymous nor should they be hidden behind secret trusts.
In negotiations over this bill we have made progress towards achieving our policy by introducing a system that will limit political parties to a total anonymous donations income, for donations over $1000, of 10% of their spending cap over the three year electoral cycle – this would cut Labour’s anonymous donations income by at least half and National’s secret trust income by about 90%. Labour and National don’t like it but we make no apologies for this.
In addition the money must be passed via the Electoral Commission to distance the parties from the process and donors must identify themselves to the Electoral Commission and give an assurance that they are not telling the parties about the donation on the sly. There is a limit of $36,000 on how much any one donor can give to a political party via this mechanism.
Green further amendments – Citizens Assembly
Finally, let me say that the Greens are unhappy with the process for this bill. We believe that a much better process would be to establish a citizens assembly to consider electoral finance rules. Such citizens assemblies have been used recently in Canada. They involve randomly selecting a male and female voter from each electorate who are brought together over a series of weekends to consider the rules around electoral finance. They are properly resourced and run by an independent body such as the Electoral Commission. Their recommendations would become a bill that was introduced into parliament.
The Greens will be moving amendments to the bill to establish a citizens assembly to review the rules around electoral finance. We hope that other parties such as National will support such an amendment.
Our democracy belongs to the people and they should be the ones to set the rules.
The Greens are proud of our role in protecting freedom of speech and introducing rules to ensure that our elections are fairer.
The Green Party negotiated several changes to improve the original Electoral Finance Bill.
These are:
Alter the definition of election advertising to protect issues advertising
This means that individuals and groups will be free to campaign on the issues that are important to them, regardless of whether one or more parties is also campaigning on the same issue. For example, Greenpeace can continue to campaign against whaling, even though it is a campaign the Green Party has a profile on.
Lift the cap on third party spending from $60,000 to $120,000
Many groups and individuals engage in election advertising, specifically supporting or opposing a particular party or candidate. Political parties are limited to spending no more than $2.4 million. These groups and individuals will be limited to spending no more than $120,000, 5% of the party limit and twice that originally proposed.
Lift the spending limit at which a group must list as a third party from $5000 to $12,000
This was important because many groups and people advertise thier support or opposition to parties or candidates through pamphlets, newsletters or community newspaper adverts. These ordinary election activities should not require a person or group to have to list as a third party where the spending is under $12,000.
Enable under 18 year olds and permanent residents to be able to list as a third party
We fought for the inclusion of this because it is a breach of the rights of a citizen to be prevented from engaging in election advertising activities simply because they are not old enough to vote. This change also means that groups will not be excluded from listing as a third party simply because one member is under 18 years old.
Protect donations to groups that are not for election purposes
This means that groups will not have to declare any donations that are not specifically for election purposes. Groups are entitled to raise and collect money for thier activities without interference. Only donations given specifically for electioneering will need to be disclosed.
Increase the limit before third parties have to disclose donations for election purposes from $500 to $5000
This was important to protect a groups right to raise and collect money for thier electioneering without unecessary reporting burdens. Some organisations have good reason to protect the identities of their donors and this must be respected.
Remove the requirement for a statutory declaration for spending less than the threshold
This means that people or groups dont have to sign a statutory declaration everytime they spend money under the threshold for listing. It was an unecessary burden that performed no useful function.
Strengthen the enforcement provisions from a fine of $40,000 to $100,000
We felt it was important to discourage breaches of this legislation, so we argued for an increase in the level of fine from $40,000 to $100,000. This penalty (along with up to two years in prison) applies to those who wilfully attempt to avoid the limits in the bill. The higher the penalties the greater the deterrant and the more likely the police will take prosecutions.
Severely restrict anonymous donations to political and third parties
The Greens believe that the electoral system must be open and transparent, therefore we tried to limit the level to which individuals, groups and businesses could hide their political donations. We believe the public has the right to know who has a vested interest in which political party.
Protected Disclosure regime
We have ensured that in the absence of a ban on anonymous donations, parties and third parties are restricted in the amount of anonymous donations that they can receive. We have also restricted how much any one person or individual may donate anonymously.
The protected disclosure regime has the following elements:
a donor may give up to $1000 anonymously directly to a party or third party without disclosing their identity to the party or the public.
if a donor wants to give more than $1000 but keep their identity secret from the party/third party and the public they must send it to the Electoral Commission.
The donor must also include their name and address and any other information required by the Commission. The donor must sign a statutory declaration that they will not disclose their identity to the party or third party.
If the donation consists of a number of contributors, each contributor of more than $1000 must be identified to the Commission.
The Commission will keep a list of the donors but not release that information.
The Commission will pass on the donation to the specified party or third party at monthly intervals.
In the three year period between elections no person may donate more than $36,000 to any party, nor more than $1,800 to any third party. The Commission records will enable these limits to be monitored.
In the three year period between elections, the Commission must not transfer more than $240,000 to any political party or more that $12,000 to any third party. These limits are 10% of the total that either the party or the third party may spend during the regulated period.
Any person or organisation who wilfully attempts to circumvent these limits is guilty of a corrupt practice and liable for a prison term of up to 2 years and up to a $100,000 fine.