Protecting the Equality of the Ballot from the Inequity of the Wallet

Principles

Modern New Zealand has been built on the principle of democracy and the struggle for equity. But democracy does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in our society which is increasingly characterised by inequality of wealth. And that inequality of wealth can have a very significant impact on our democracy.

If democracy is to function properly then we must protect the equality of the ballot from the inequality of wallet. We must ensure that there is a level playing field in election campaigns. We must know who is providing the money in election campaigns so we can track its influence. And we must protect the right to free speech. This is why most western democracies have rules to limit the election spending by political parties and interest groups and why the Greens believe New Zealand should also.

The Level Playing Field

New Zealanders have established a series of unique rules and regulations 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 – a restriction on the free speech of parties, but a restriction to prevent wealthy parties from dominating the political space. Political parties aren’t even allowed to place ads on TV and radio except with the money allocated by the Electoral Commission –a restriction on the free speech of the parties, but a restriction that wealthy parties don’t dominate the TV and radio with expensive advertising.

These are good rules that have meant we have something of a level playing field in elections. Without a level playing field there is no democracy.

In 2005 real problems emerged with the uneven playing field and we must deal with them. One of those problems was exposed by the Exclusive Brethren/National Party. The Brethren ran a million dollar advertising campaign that was effectively a ‘Vote National’ campaign.
According to Nicky Hagar, “National campaign manager Steven Joyce met secretly with the Exclusive Brethren in May 2005, where he proposed the “Change the Government” slogan used in the Brethren pamphlets.” This fit perfectly with National’s slogan “The only way to change the Government is to vote National”.
“The Brethren also met (past leader) Don Brash and (current leader) John Key about their election plans. Four months before the election, they told Brash and Key they would spend $1 million on seven pamphlets with the “sole goal” of party votes for National. But like the other secret allies, National knew that Brethren links wouldn’t look good and preferred to keep them secret. Both Brash and Key later denied foreknowledge of the Brethren campaign.”

This million dollar ‘vote National’ campaign was not included under the cap of the National Party spending. And was purposely hidden from public view. It was only through the investigation by the Greens and particularly Rod Donald that this rort was exposed – our electoral rules failed New Zealanders in 2005. The Brethrens and Nationals desperate attempts to keep their identity secret, was a direct attack on a transparent and open democratic process. Every New Zealander should be horrified by that attack.

The Exclusive Brethren National Party campaign demonstrated a huge loophole in our law that must be closed.

In 1986, the Royal Commission said: “It is illogical to limit spending by parties if other interests are not also controlled. Supporters or opponents of a party or candidate should not be able to promote their views without restriction merely by forming campaign organisations ‘unaffiliated’ to any party…Nor should powerful or wealthy interest groups be able to spend without restriction during an election campaign while [the parties] are restricted”.

If we don’t close this loophole then the spending caps on political parties will be meaningless. If we don’t close this loophole, secret groups working with political parties will continue to manipulate the election outcome, by attempting to buy the election.

Transparency of Funding

We want our law makers to owe their allegiance to the voters, not to those who funded their election campaigns. We don’t want legislators worrying about satisfying wealthy interest groups so that they can raise enough money to run their next election campaign.

To keep our MP’s from being beholden to wealthy interest groups, we not only restrict how much parties can spend campaigning, we have rules to make the parties tell us who is providing their funding. We want to see if their funders are affecting the way they vote 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.

But again in 2005, problems emerged with the transparency regime.

We’ve seen a big increase in the flow of secret money into both National and Labour Party coffers. Over the three years from 2004 to 2006, for donations over $10,000, Labour received $400,000 in anonymous donations and National received $2.2 million from the secret trusts. Senior officials in National knew who had given them money and other advertising but didn’t tell anyone. But it was exposed again by Nicky Hagar, “Groups like the horse racing lobby and Brethren would provide “independent” pro-National advertising. Some rich Business Roundtable supporters …funded the biography of leader Don Brash. The Maxim Institute…spent large sums on pro-National publicity and so on – all on top of “anonymous” Business Roundtable donors giving National probably the biggest campaign budget in our history.”
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.

The Greens insisted on an anonymous donations regime that will restrict National and Labour’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 made progress towards our policy. We introduced 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%.

We have all heard the National Party’s nashing of teeth over this bill but that is simply because they are fiercely opposed to any law that will prevent them circumventing the basic democratic principles of transparency and a level playing field. They will not be able to have a secret group run their vote national campaign for them. They will not be able to have their campaign funded from secret money. Their desperation to become Government that lead them to actively exploit the loopholes cannot continue. That is why they are so fiercely opposed to this bill.

Freedom of Speech

To ensure we have a fair democracy, we must protect freedom of speech for voters and interest groups while imposing rules to stop the buying of an election. That is a difficult path to get right. Elections are for the voters and it is essential that the voters get to have a voice. But, the spending by one well-resourced group must not drown out the voices of all the other groups and the political parties. There is a crucial balancing act needed between these two fundamental rights – one of free expression and one of equity in participating in the parliamentary democracy.

The Greens have a record on Human Rights that is second to none in this or any previous parliaments. Even where such a stand is highly unpopular and attracts
attacks, we have stood firm. The Terrorism Suppression Act was one example, as was our support for Ahmed Zaoui and our opposition to the Foreshore and Seabed legislation. We have and will withstet any attack to defend human rights.

If the Greens truly believed for one moment that this legislation was an abuse
of human rights we would not support it. I recognise that the Human Right
Commission had real concerns about some of the provisions, though they
fully supported the intent of the bill. We chose to work constructively with other parties, ACT, United Future, NZ First and Labour to make the changes recommended by the Human Rights Commission.

We believe that the right to participate in our parliamentary democracy is threatened if there are no controls on the money that can be spent on parallel campaigns. We have worked to find that balance to protect the rights of New Zealanders.

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. In this way the citizens of NZ are direct participants in the decision over how participation is managed. Such citizens assemblies have been used recently in Canada, but also in New Zealand under previous labour Governments. A citizens assembly involves 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 supported by an independent body such as the Electoral Commission. Their recommendations would become a bill that was introduced into parliament.

The Greens developing 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 to give citizens a direct voice in electoral law reform – a truly democratic process.

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.