Planet Key

When Helen Clark’s Electoral Finance Act came into effect, many of us pointed out it represented censorship at worst, and a stifling of free expression at best.

When John Key amended the Act, many of us pointed out the biggest change was the name but the effect was still the same: a stifling of political protest.

Enter bluesman Darren Watson, whose innocuous song Planet Key will be rubbed out this afternoon by the Electoral Commission. Their job is interpreting and enforcing the ill-worded law that now permanently confines political expression, and in the opinion of these grey ones the law bans Darren from releasing this song to the net, on radio, or in any electronic form unless he attaches his name and address to it.

Because to release any political commentary in this form over the election period is, in the view of the grey ones, a political advertisement.

The Electoral Commission is also threatening that the sale of the song through iTunes without a promoter statement is "an apparent breach of section 204F of the Electoral Act", punishable by a fine of up to $10,000.
    Said Watson: "I object to the suggestion that I am some sort of political promoter. I am a musician and I feel very strongly about this kind of censorship. I believe in artistic freedom."

The boys and girls at the Electoral Commission do not.

The manner of their threat is pure bureaucratese:

Watson tweeted on Tuesday that he would be removing it from sale "by order of the Electoral Commission" - but the commission says it has made no such order.
    "We haven't ordered anything to be taken down, or removed," a spokesperson told 3 News. "The commission does not have any power to prosecute."
    Instead, the commission says it has advised the duo to add a promoter statement. The advice isn't legally binding, but if they don't comply, the Electoral Commission will have to consider whether to refer the matter to the police.

This is not an order. No. But if you don’t do it, we’ll “refer the matter to the police” – and with our warmest recommendation.

So, by this afternoon, this video will be a dead link:

Planet Key from Propeller Motion on Vimeo.

So much for honest government

Was the government changed at all at the last election?

You wouldn’t think so.

• Nanny is still with us.
• Her anti-smacking law is still with us.
• Aside from making it easier for the govt to bulldoze houses and factories, the Resource Management Act is fundamentally unchanged.
• Council rate rises continue to rise, even as their borrowings to fund their spending increases accelerate.
• The global warming/emissions trading scam continues.
• Our substance is still eaten out by KiwiRail and KiwiBank, KiwiSaver and Welfare for Working Families, by bureaucrats and central bankers, by the IRD and ACC -- and by politicians whose snouts are in the trough with an arrogance and sense of “entitlement” that normally takes three terms to develop, not just one.
• And in the face of the biggest economic crisis in seventy years we have a Finance Minister who can talk only about “sharp edges” and “green shoots” “rebalancing,” and between times acts in a manner that makes a deer in the headlights look purposeful.

So it’s all not good. Not good at all. 

And then yesterday it was reconfirmed, as it was was in September last year, and then again back in April this year, that the Electoral Finance Abomination is on its way back again, with just a few tweaks from Simon Power-Lust to pretend that all the campaigning and protesting and marching in the streets to oust Helen’s Electoral Finance Act really  meant something.

But it didn’t.

We marched to tear down Helen’s anti-democratic attack on free speech, only for you lot to vote in this lot to do the same themselves. To replace her Electoral Finance Abomination with their Electoral Finance Abomination-Lite. It includes:

• a $300,000 spending limit on non-political parties running protest campaigns in the three “official” months of the election.
• These “third party” protestors must register with the grey ones if they want to spend anything more than buying a classified ad in the Herald;
• and include their names (and addreses?) on their ads and billboards.
• "Anti-collusion" measures to really crack down on these jumped-up ne’er-do-wells with the temerity to criticise their betters.
• More taxpayers’ money gifted to the big two parties to advertise themselves on television and radio to the effective exclusion of the smaller parties.

And of course Labour will support it all because it, too, wants to limit the political competition—any competition at all—from anyone outside the Tweedledum and Tweedledumber of The Big Two parties.

What a crock.

So much for all the pontificating blowhard National Socialist MPS who blew hard and long at rallies around the country about the iniquity of Helen’s Electoral Finance Abomination, only to introduce their own.

Just as they marched and blew hard and long at rallies around the country about the iniquity of Helen’s  ant-smacking law, only to support it themselves.

They are scum, scum, scum, from their back teeth to their bum.

Bernard Darnton said two-and-a-half years ago that he looked forward to seeing the back of Helen Clark, but did not look forward to seeing the front of John Key.

Two-and-a-half years on from exchanging one from another, the only visible difference is a smile and a wave and the endless repetition of the word “relaxed” while things fall to pieces around him.

But of any fundamental change, there is none. None at all.

Here’s a poster produced by Whale Oil based on those produced for the last free speech campaign. All it needs is some funding and a corner site somewhere.

In government, less is more

Great point this morning made by Lindsay Mitchell:

  “An AUT survey shows that,   

    ‘Feeling as though the Government is listening to them is one of the most important things to New Zealanders, but it is the area where the country scores the worst.’

   The best remedy for this [says Lindsay] is not more democracy, more participation, more consulting, more select committees, more representatives, more commissions of enquiry, etc.
  “It is LESS government. If government weren't so pervasive in all aspects of our lives its non-responsiveness would be less of a problem.”

Exactly right. 

And it shouldn’t take a moment on that basis to work out what the real problem is with “campaign finance reform” (if politicians weren't so pervasive in all aspects of our lives the origin of the money that elected them would be less of a problem) and with the super-bureaucracy Rodney Hide is building in Auckland (if local government weren't so pervasive in all aspects of our lives then the unresponsiveness and inapproachability of its super-bureaucrats would be less of a problem).

‘NZ in Print’ – this has now gone way beyond satire [update 3]

IT’S GETTING HARD TO make a joke these days without some humourless bastard taking it seriously – and it’s getting hard to satirise the statists without giving them new ideas.

Some years ago, back before Al Gore invented the internet, a pale physics student from Otago called Bernard Darnton penned a piece of rollicking satire called ‘Achtung Fatso!’ in which he satirised the food fascists by exaggerating their programmes. Fat taxes. Guidelines on healthy eating issued by a Ministry for Nutritional Responsibility. The commissioning of a Body Mass Index Safety Authority.  These were all satire back in 1997 – or they were, until the likes of Sue Kedgeley started getting ideas.

Bernard has a lot to answer for.

And so does Lindsay Perigo. Years ago when we Libz were opposing the broadcasting fee he satirised NZ On Air with suggestions for a new organisation called NZ in Print.

    “We have a thing in NZ, a government body called NZ on Air. It shells out taxpayer money to local outfits to produce television programmes it deems worthy. It used to collect a dedicated fee from anyone who owned a television set before we freedom-fighters got that abolished.
    “One day, as part of an ongoing campaign against this monstrosity … I went on my radio show and announced that a new statutory body was being set up called NZ in Print, which would collect a levy from every New Zealander and use it to set up a govt-run daily newspaper. "This'll point up how ridiculous and indefensible NaZis on Air is," I thought. Problem was, listeners believed me till I told them I was pulling their tits. "NZ in Print" just didn't seem that unlikely in our Nanny State environment!”

I guess he didn’t realise that people like Fran O’Sullivan was listening.

This week in Wellington, you see, while purporting to talk about political blogging O’Sullivan was shamefully shilling for her employers.  “Increasing commercial pressures on newspapers and diminishing resources to do investigative journalism,” was the bleat. Taxpayers stumping up for electronic media but not for paper-based was her whinge. Bailouts for newspapers! was her solution. What she advocated was that “NZ on Air should become NZ on Media, and all media should be able to apply for worthy ‘local content’ projects whether they be TV, radio, print or Internet.”

Oh. My. Word.  What chutzpah! To confess that your employers’ Victorian-era business model is failing, and then to stand there demanding the taxpayer picks up the slack. To take a bad idea – govt funding of the arts and culture  industry – and to use that to justify an ongoing bailout for your newspaper industry. Talk about a dirty business, and this from a supposed business journalist.

And has she been smacked down for it?  Not a bit of it.  For her trial balloon suggested journalists like her be given a tilt at the trough she’s earned herself a round of applause!

This is the sort of thing David Farrar considers “a really good idea.”

This is what Janet Wilson & Bill Ralston (the man who did to TVNZ News what he’d previously done to Metro magazine) call “an interesting idea.” “Fran has a good point,” they say.  Lead me to the trough! they smirk.

What a bunch of disgusting, grasping  low-lifes.

At times like this you can only wish that satirists would stay silent, and self-interest take a higher road.

It’s not just more welfare for Ponsonby late-lunchers that such a “solution” would deliver.  It would also deliver a further kick in the guts to free speech – and make your daily newspaper effectively an arm of the state.

We already know what “worthy ‘local content’” looks like from the dross delivered by the NZ On Air dole-outs.  Can you imagine what sort of worthy “investigative” journalism would be funded by such a body? It certainly wouldn’t be funding investigations into abuse by government, or of troughing in high places – that much is for sure – just the sort of softcock-Cameron-Bennett handwringing that contaminates your TV screen on a Sunday evening . Because as Nigel Kearney asked at Farrar’s place,

    “Can Sullivan’s plan for a permanent bailout be done without the government deciding what investigative journalism does and does not get funded?”

No, of course it couldn’t. This would be chilling to free speech – it would be what I’ve called once before “a different kind of censorship,” and Ayn Rand called “the establishing of an establishment."

So what the hell does that mean? Sit back while I explain.

LET ME START MY answer to that by mentioning a story run a few years back by the UK Daily Pundit about every liberal's favourite UK newspaper:

    “The Guardian [it said] is effectively being subsidised by the government and could go bust if a Tory government introduced a ban on public sector recruitment through newspaper ads. At present, government recruiting is costing the taxpayer in excess of 800 million pounds per year. Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, is promising to change the system to allows jobs to be advertised for free on a new official website. The cost of running the website would be approximately 5 million pounds per year.”

The Media Bulletin noted that "The Guardian currently dominates this market and, according to research by Reed Personnel Services, advertises two-thirds of public sector jobs." Now, I don't want to talk about that proposed ban or about the cost of employment websites. What I do want to talk about is that advertising. If Reeds are right, and there's no reason they wouldn't be, that's 600 million pounds of government money going to The Guardian every year by this means alone -- and I'm sure no-one would suggest The Guardian and its employees are not so stupid that they don't know which side their bread is being buttered on, and who it is who is doing the buttering.

You see what I mean by another kind of censorship? As they often say, he who pays the piper calls the tune.  Do you really want the tune the newspaper’s whistling over your morning brekkie to have been composed in a government office?

Do you really want hard stories soft-soaped by journalists with one eye on their investigation and the other on their tender into the government for further work?

It’s as easy for a government to buy a compliant media by doling out taxpayers’ cash as it was for Helen to buy a compliant “creative sector” by doling out grants and dole payments.

SO LIKE I SAY, there is more than one kind of censorship. The first and most straightforward method of censorship is for a government to ban speech that they don't like -- that's just what Labour & National  like to do with their Electoral Finance Act & Electoral Finance Act Lite respectively, and I hope you lot feel disgusted enough about that to do something about it.

It’s the second form of censorship that Ayn Rand called "the establishing of an establishment," and it’s surely no less chilling. As she says so succinctly:

    “Governmental repression is [not] the only way a government can destroy the intellectual life of a country... There is another way: governmental encouragement.”

As a form of censorship this one is much more subtle,and much more appealing to trough-snuffling self-interest.

    “Governmental encouragement does not order men to believe that the false is true: it merely makes them indifferent to the issue of truth or falsehood.”

That’s worse than flat-out censorship, isn’t it. It makes folk indifferent to truth and falsehood (and to the immorality of becoming another bailout bludger) and sensitive instead to what is deemed to be acceptable, and thereby lucrative -- and it encourages and makes lucrative that very form of sensitivity.

This is what Rand called "the welfare state of the intellect," and the result is always as destructive as that other, more visible welfare state.  You see the establishment of politicians, bureaucrats and their minions as arbiters of thinking and taste and ideology; you see the freezing of the status quo; you observe a creeping staleness and conformity, an insidious unwillingness to speak out.  What you see, in short, is "the establishing of an establishment" to which new entrants in a field realise very quickly they will have to either conform or go under. As Rand observed of the behaviour this kind of censorship encourages:

    “If you talk to a typical business executive or college dean or magazine editor [or spin doctor or opposition leader], you can observe his special, modern quality: a kind of flowing or skipping evasiveness that drips or bounces automatically off any fundamental issue, a gently non-committal blandness, an ingrained cautiousness toward everything, as if an inner tape recorder were whispering: Play it safe, don't antagonize--whom?—anybody’."

Is that what you want your taxes to encourage?  If you do then you can count me out.

The American Constitution effected a separation of church and state for a reason – one that is observed at least de facto down here at the bottom of the South Pacific. As Ayn Rand observed, the constitutional separation prevents a formal governmental establishment of religion because such a thing is properly regarded as a violation of individual rights. By extension, then,

    “Since a man's beliefs [about religion] are protected from the intrusion of force, the same principle should protect his reasoned convictions and forbid governmental establishments in the field of thought.”

Think about it.  And then send your thoughts on to people like David Farrar and Fran O’Sullivan and Bill Ralston, who should really know better. Remind them perhaps of that line I quoted above:

“Governmental repression is [not] the only way a government can destroy the intellectual life of a country… There is another way: governmental encouragement. . . .”

UPDATE: How quickly they all turn once they’re offered a trough to lie in.  Whale Oil puts his hand up for a piece of the funding pie.

UPDATE 2:  Don’t extend the aegis of the state broadcasting subsidy body NZ On Air to other media, says Liberty Scott -- Don’t extend it: abolish it!

UPDATE 3: Maybe Fran was reading PJ O’Rourke’s satire on this from last November, in which he specially pleaded for “bailouts for print paupers”?

“There are many compelling reasons to save America's print journalism. And I'll think of some while the waiter brings me another drink. In the first place, one out of three American households is dependent on print journalism* . . . We need a swift infusion of federal aid. Otherwise all the information in the US will be about Lindsay Lohan's sex life.”
*For house-breaking puppies.

NOT PJ: Electoral Finance React

This week Bernard Darnton says something political, and doesn’t even tell the Electoral Commission what time he’ll be home.

The Electoral Finance Act is back from the grave. It turns out that incumbency protection is far more appealing when you’re the incumbent.

The Labour press release on the topic is not so much eye-opening as gob-opening. David Parker complains that “the Government is happy to consult only on aspects of electoral reform that suits it.” Yiddish lexicographer (amongst other things) Leo Rosten described chutzpah as “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.”

There’s no need to actually read the press release. We know what Labour’s preferred system would look like. Phil Goff may have apologised for scolding us about what shape lightbulbs we use and how many litres flow through our shower heads but you can be sure that Labour still knows exactly how many spots a leopard should have and won’t tolerate any alternative.

At the time the original Bill was being debated, National’s freedom-loving cohort – and it’s genuine, if inconsistent – was in the fore. A few cynics suggested that they were just in it for their own venal reasons but I was just happy to be fighting for something popular for a change.

However, like any large political party, National is also home to the pompous and the power-hungry. Their objection to the Electoral Finance Act wasn’t its contents but the fact they weren’t doing politics, they were having politics done to them.

Beside them were the thin-skinned – the ones who were upset because they weren’t asked nicely (or at all) about what should be in the new law. These people should get another job. If politics was about asking nicely for things I wouldn’t have so much to complain about each week.

So back comes the tinkered-with version. There will still be restrictions on who you can give money to, and how much. There will still be restrictions on what you’re allowed to say during an election campaign and in which media you’re allowed to say it. There will still be requirements to register with the Electoral Commission if you’d like permission to speak and to put your address on flyers so that nutters can stick knives in your lawn.

Advocates for election-period gagging rules, like Green co-leader Metiria Turei, are constantly in a flap about money: “It is vital that New Zealand’s democracy cannot be bought by big business.” Here’s the thing: it can’t anyway. The correlation between money spent on an election campaign and number of votes gained is very weak. As the New Zealand record holder for dollars spent per vote, I should know.

The Exclusive Brethren, another of Turei’s bogeys, know too. They’re always used as an example of what was wrong with the old system – big money from mysterious groups piling in to swing an election. The trouble is the plan was a complete failure. It didn’t work. It didn’t come close to working. If it was a dog you’d shoot it. If it was a person you’d insulate its house and pay it to breed.

Justice Minister Simon Power’s proposal document asks for more advice on “how the scheme could uphold freedom of expression, be simple and easy to comply with.”

Lindsay Perigo responds to Power’s challenge in the only way it’s possible to respond to wordy regulatory blather – by stating the bleeding obvious: “Well, here’s something simple, Simon. Just repair to Section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act, which upholds ‘the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.’

“No restrictions on who may fund whom (publicly or privately), who may campaign for whom, who may advertise for whom and with whom – and no taxpayer money to anyone. That’s freedom of expression, Simon, and it’s darned simple and easy to comply with.”

* * Read Bernard Darnton’s column every Thursday here at NOT PC * *

In answer to the trolls – and a lesson in courtesy

A troll wants to know what happened to the money donated to the Darnton v Clark court case that was left over after Helen changed the law to extricate herself from it.  To find out the answer to this burning question, (well, “burning” to the troll anyway) I didn’t spam the question every ten minutes on every active thread here at NOT PC (which is what our troll did, one of the reasons my comments here are still under moderation).  Instead I just emailed Bernard Darnton, something anyone with a computer and a connection could have done. And he replied:

“The leftovers from the DvC donations were donated to the Free Speech Coalition’s anti-EFA campaign.”

So there’s your answer. If you really wanted it, all you had to do was ask politely (remember politeness?)

And it’s a shame the Free Speech Coalition’s money’s been all used up, because it’s looking like we’re going to need to get active again against National’s EFA-Lite.

National to reintroduce EFA-lite [updated]

Remember the protests over Labour’s Electoral Finance Act? Remember the wriggling by Greens and Labour supporters attempting to justify this outrageous assault on free speech? Remember the campaigns against it by the Free Speech Coalition and John Boscawen?  Remember all the heroes? Remember the subsequent abolition of the Act by National and the apology by Phil Goff – and the promise that National would eventually dream up something better with which to replace it?

Remember it well, because it was all for naught.  As Lindsay Perigo points out at SOLO, the National Socialists Sell Out Again!

The National-led Government's draft proposals for legislation to replace the vicious Electoral Finance Act make one wonder why National bothered keeping its much-vaunted promise to repeal that Act, since what is proposed by Justice Minister Simon Power is in many instances indistinguishable from what was, says SOLO Principal Lindsay Perigo.

For instance, on state funds for election broadcasting:

The Government is consulting on three options for reform of the broadcasting allocation as follows:

1. Status quo - retain the current broadcasting  allocation regime.
Or
2. Moderate reform - allowing broadcasting funds to be spent in any media, and not just radio and television.
Or
3. Significant reform - allowing broadcasting funds to be spent for any purpose, and not just election advertising.

On donations:

Retain the regime governing donations to constituency candidates and political parties that was developed as part of the Electoral Finance Act 2007, and now forms part of the Electoral Act 1993.

On campaign spending limits:

Increase expenditure limits for constituency candidates and political parties (last increased in 1995), and periodically adjust limits for inflation.

On political ads:

Require promoter’s name and full street address and suburb which is either a residential address, or is where the promoter can usually be contacted during the day (cannot be a PO Box).

On campaigning by third parties:

The Government is consulting on two options for regulation of parallel campaigners:
1.     Proportionate regulation  - this option will establish campaign expenditure limits and thresholds over which the parallel campaigner must register with the Electoral Commission - unlike the Electoral Finance Act 2007, however, the scheme is weighted in favour of freedom of expression, and is simple and easy to comply with.
        The Government is therefore requesting further submissions on how the scheme could uphold freedom of expression, be simple and easy to comply with.
Or
2.     Status quo - this option could be subject to possible modification, such as restriction of parallel campaigning to New Zealand individuals and groups.

On radio and television advertising by third parties:

The Government is consulting on two options:
1. Allow parallel campaigners to advertise on radio and television, provided that they are subject to a system of proportionate regulation (the first option proposed for the overall regulation of parallel campaigners).
Or
2. Retain the current prohibition.

On whether you'll be fined $100,000 for exercising your right to free speech:

The new stand-alone electoral agency will be tasked with publishing guidance on electoral finance rules and providing advisory opinions on whether publications amount to an election advertisement.

Penalties for electoral finance offences were increased significantly by the Electoral Finance Act 2007, as were the time limits for prosecution of serious electoral finance offences.
[The Government would] retain the offences and penalties regime and time limits that were developed as part of the Electoral Finance Act 2007 and now forms part of the Electoral Act 1993.

"This is all contemptible," says Perigo. "Sell-out Simon asks how the scheme could better uphold freedom of expression, be simple and easy to comply with. Well, here’s something simple, Simon. Just repair to Section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act, which upholds 'the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.'

"No restrictions on who may fund whom (publicly or privately), who may campaign for whom, who may advertise for whom and with whom—and no taxpayer money to anyone. That's freedom of expression, Simon, and it's darned simple and easy to comply with.

"For precisely that reason, one fears, the National Socialists will do the opposite and proceed with this reprehensible resuscitation of the very Act they so recently dumped. This would be sufficient reason to dump them," Perigo concludes.

Your democracy is still under attack, this time by the people who said they were going to protect it.  Which is the biggest betrayal, do you think?

UPDATE: By way of contrast, David Farrar – a chief promoter of the Kill the Bill campaign- says of Simon’s EFA-Lite, “Overall it is a good document. . . .”  Apparently it’s only bad when Labour promotes such things.

Meanwhile, Marty G. at The Standard is at least more principled.  He was for Labour’s assault on free speech, and he’s for this one as well. Says Mart “At first blush, Power appears to have done a reasonable job and he’s done it by largely keeping the EFA intact.”  Our evaluation of the latter is the same – it’s the former on which we disagree.

Quote of the day: Ayn Rand on “public financing” of elections

    “The existence and rivalry of two parties, even such as they are, is the last protection of the (approximate) honesty of elections. It is obvious what sort of rigging would go on, if the government were given the power to finance elections. They call it "public financing," which means that you would be deprived of the right to decide which candidates you want to support, if any, and that the politicians would make that decision for you. . .  In today's situation, you'd better pray for the survival of plain, old-fashioned grafters: when they vanish, you'll get a Robespierre or a Hitler, both of whom were anti-materialistic and incorruptible.
    The solution, of course, is to eliminate both kinds of predators, material or spiritual, by eliminating their breeding ground: the government's power over the economy.”

Free Speech vs Russel Norman

The Greens’s Russel Norman makes it abundantly clear in an email to researcher Bryce Edwards why the Greens under Norman’s leadership were, and are, such enthusiastic supporters of the free-speech-killing Electoral Finance Act.  The reason is simple enough: because the ginger whinger is so violently opposed to free speech.

David Farrar has the story.

Perhaps Green supporters should be changing both their leaders, instead of just one?

EFA - gone

It started with the Labour Party changing the law to stop Bernard Darnton suing them over their 2005 pledge card, continued with their Electoral Finance Act by which they attempted to squelch free speech and hog-tie their opponents, and now after many months of shouting in the end it (eventually) took take less than a day to excise that incursion into Mugabeism from our law books.

And even Labour voted for its removal, and new Labour leader Phil Goff had the grace to concede it was a mistake.

Unfortunately, reports do not record what Helen Clark’s face looked like when she was required to file into the lobbies to vote against the mechanism by which she hoped to achieve a permanent Premiership.

Honourable mentions in the battle to exterminate this affront to democracy:

• Bernard Darnton *
• David Farrar, Cameron Slater and their Free Speech Coalition. *
• John Boscawen, who organised protests around the country that attracted thousands of affronted New Zealanders.
• The NZ Herald, who front footed the theme of Democracy Under Attack, and showed there is a backbone thereafter all.
• The National Party (yes, the National Party), who with the exception of one clause have kept their election promise to remove this travesty from the law books. Since this will probably be their only move in the direction of freedom this term (notice that it’s only a temporary restitution of previous law before the reinstitution of something else before the next election, let's take the opportunity to celebrate.

* That these two protest websites are now covered in cobwebs is proof enough of the measure of their success.

Electoral Finance Act still law, but ... [updated]

It started with the Labour Party changing the law to stop Bernard Darnton suing them over their 2005 pledge card, continued with their Electoral Finance Act by which they attempted to squelch free speech and hog-tie their opponents, and now after many months of shouting in the end a bill to remove that incursion into Mugabeism from our law books was introduced to parliament last night, and it looks like by this time next week it will be dead – with the exception of one clause.

And in the end, after all the months of hysterically defending the indefensible, even Labour voted for its removal, and new Labour leader Phil Goff had the grace and common sense to concede it was a mistake.

Unfortunately, reports do not record what Helen Clark’s face looked like when she was required to file into the lobbies to begin voting against the mechanism by which she hoped to achieve a permanent Premiership.

UPDATE:  Since he did so much to sterling work to bring about its imminent dissolution, David Farrar deserves a word here:

    A rare joint award to Labour and National for starting the repeal of the Electoral Finance Act.The real evil of the Electoral Finance Act wasn't so much in its substance (even though that was bad enough) but more so in the way it was drafted without any attempt at consultation with the public or Opposition political parties…
    The anger in National (and elsewhere) over the Electoral Finance Act is palpable. The Act is detested, and represents to National the closest we have come to a constitutional coup - an attempt to so skew the playing field, to the benefit of one party only. Many in National would happily sign up to an "utu" response where the EFA is not only repealed, but is inflicted on Labour in reverse.
    But wiser heads have prevailed, and National is sincerely committed to multi-party (and public) consultation over the replacement to the Electoral Finance Act.

This indicates why National’s promised repeal only gets two cheers from this quarter.  In contradiction to David’s conventional view, the real evil of the Electoral Finance Act wasn't at all that it was drafted without any attempt at consultation with the public or Opposition political parties.  (As long as a law protects individual rights then it’s not “consultation” but urgent introduction that’s necessary.)   In fact, the real evil was that the Electoral Finance Act was a total affront to free speech, and to the standards of what purport to be democracy.

Sheesh already!  The evil of the act cannot be so so simply dispelled by waving over it the magic wand of “multi-party (and public) consultation”: what it needs is the introduction of objective law to govern NZ’s elections that is clear, impartial, and that actually protects NZers’ rights to free speech and free association --which includes the right to donate however much one wishes to to whomever one so chooses.

Scandal shmandal

Neutron bombs, consulships in Monaco, treason, TVNZ and where John Key was in 1986.  Looking at what politicians and media consider important just nine days from an election, you wouldn't think the world economy is looking worse than at any time since the mid-thirties, would you.

I don't care at this stage about Winston Peters' baubles, his suspension, his censure by the Privileges Committee, what he said to Owen Glenn and when ...   At this stage all of that stuff is just sideshow without substance.

I don't care about Chinese immigrants donating to political parties -- except to the extent that the parties donated to are bloody thieves anyway, which of course we already know.

I don't care about who bought lunch for John Key when he was 26, or where he was working  -- or which drugs Matthew Hooton was killing his brain cells with at the same age -- and as "neutron bombs" go, even Russell Brown concedes this particular one was more fizzer than most.

I couldn't care less about how many shares Gerry Brownlee owns, or owned.  Frankly, I'm surprised he even knows how to buy them.

I don't care about Helen and Peter's marriage, and whether or not he can make a cup of tea -- either after sex, or before.

I don't care about who sacked whom at the Department of Conservation, or which scampi lawyer Ian Ewen-Street slept with.

I don't care about the frankly childish claims of "treason," or how "TVNZ has entered the 2008 General Election campaign on the side of the National Party," or the Herald has entered the campaign on the side of Hard Labour.

Here's what I do care about:

• I do care about the worldwide economic disaster and how NZ's politicians can make it worse.  I have no confidence at all that any of the major party politicians has the faintest idea how to confront it. All we can hope for it seems is they don't make things worse.  A vain hope, I suspect.
• I do care that at a time of "low unemployment" most of New Zealand's working middle class is now on welfare -- and happy about it -- and there are now 182,091 people  (and rising) receiving DPB and Invalids Benefits -- and this is before the full effects of the economic storm hits New Zealand (and before John Key's promise to cover the expenses and mortgage payments of all New Zealanders who lose their jobs in the current recession.)
• I do care that under constant nannying New Zealanders are turning more and more into sheeple.
• I do care that two in five young New Zealanders leave this country's factory schools functionally illiterate and all but innumerate.  And I care that good people like Anita McCall continue to die in the country's die-while-you-wait hospital system. And I'm dismayed that in the face of these calamities, both politicians and public seem utterly unwilling to confront the fundamental fact that socialised medicine and socialised medicine are a disaster, and they seem to think instead that the answer is Tony Ryall.
• I do care that New Zealanders' property rights have been taken away by the Resource Management Act and given wholesale over to town planners, and not one major party shows any intention of recognising them ever again.
• I do care that when the world's perfect economic storm is about to hit, both major parties, and most of the minor ones, want to shackle agriculture and industry for the sake of a climatic delusion.
• I do care that the Electoral Finance Act has taken free speech away, yet we've seen no indication from the party who says they plan to "replace" it what exactly they're going to replace it with.

There's more than enough happening right in front of our faces that needs to be addressed --stuff that genuinely affects all of us -- without going through people's garbage to find stuff that doesn't. Stuff that I just don't care about at all.

One thousand reasons to despise the Electoral Finance Act

Here are one-thousand reasons not to have home addresses on political literature: one-thousand knives stuck into Family First's Bob McCroskie's lawn:

As a couple of bloggers have noticed, this is precisely why Libertarianz have placed the following statement on their billboards:

We figured that since Helen Elizabeth Clark, of 4 Cromwell St, Mt Eden, had introduced a law regulating political speech one-year-in-three, including a rule that all such speech must include the name and address of the person who "authorises" it -- in McCroskie's case his Value Your Vote website -- she needs to personally understand the chilling effect of such a law.

After all, if she's going to write laws placing at risk the homes of people who criticise her, people whose homes don't come complete with police protection...

NB: The photo comes from the Herald, who for their own reasons chose to digitally remove the number of Helen Clark's house, while leaving the address above. Go figure.  [Hat tip

We can see your house from here, Helen

 

Helen Elizabeth Clark, of 4 Cromwell St, Mt Eden, introduced a law last year requiring all political speech to be regulated one year in three, including the rule that all such speech must include the name and address of the person who "authorises" it.  So the Libertarianz party has followed the law with our billboards, and as the Herald has just noticed we've included on with it not just the name and address of the fine chap who authorised them, and also the name and address of the woman who mandated that we must.

After all, if she's going to write laws placing at risk the homes of people who criticise her, people whose homes don't come complete with  police protection...

NB: Interesting, don't you think, that the Herald in the picture above chose to blank out Helen's home address, but not the one above it.
Herald picture by Brett Phibbs.

Electoral Finance Act by another name would still smell as rank

Amid a maze of me-tooisms that only Ariadne could navigate with certainty, one of the few policies National leader John Key has been clear about is that if elected National will repeal the Electoral Finance Act (EFA).

Many otherwise honest people have drawn great comfort from this promise, eager to have this assault on our freedom of speech repealed.  But the talk about repeal made not so much to abolish a law that tramples our freedom of speech, but to replace it in Key's words with "something that works."

So what exactly is this promise worth, then?  What precisely will he replace it with?  Will free speech be protected, or rationed?  Do we want the same authoritarian law with a different name, in a different package, just "working better"? Not me, but that looks to be what Flip Flop Boy thinks is all we're going to deserve.

On Morning Report this morning [audio here] John Boy "clarified" his approach is to be exactly as mealy-mouthed on this as in everything else.  He confirmed his intentions regarding the EFA's replacement have nothing to do with free speech ... the main concern is "consensus," to make the electoral process  "workable," to seek "cross-party support" -- and further, many of the "aspects" of the Electoral Finance Act will be retained, says Key, who predicts no "dramatic changes" in any replacement legislation ...

So if anything at all is clear after that it's that nothing will be clear until "consensus from all parties" is sought, and found, and free speech is cut up, repackaged and rationed out by agreement among our political 'masters' who are all supposed to be our servants.

So what's a Key promise worth when it's examined?

Quotation for the day ...

... apropos of yesterday's post:

Lobbyists, special interest groups, and tainted money are drawn to political power like flies to garbage. The only way to get rid of the flies is to clean up the garbage - by cleaning up [politics], by taking away from the federal government the ability to grant favors.
- William Winter

I trust the relevance will be obvious?

Liar

So Winston Peters lied. Again. Something out of which he's built a career.

But did anyone realise he is so low he's prepared to use his mother's death to extricate himself from questions he's unable to answer? To garner sympathy, and so gain a hole to try and wriggle out?

Can anyone possibly have any respect for him again?

Winston Peters keeps them honest. Yeah right.

There are certainly apologies and resignations to be done, as Peters demanded last week -- if, that is, any integrity remained. But the apologies and the resignation should be his.

UPDATE 1: Winston Peters says the money Owen Glen donated (about which he claimed "no knowledge" for so long) didn't go to a "political fund." It went instead to a "solicitors account ... controlled by the Law Society" -- to "a legal fund" set up in 1991 when Mr Peters became involved in a series of legal actions.

No it didn't, says Winston's lawyer [hat tip Whale Oil] -- "no fund or account for Mr Peters’ legal bills existed."

UPDATE 2: Who said this:

There is little corruption in politics in this country, and the corruption that has occurred has been targeted, found out, and exposed.

Answer: Peter Brown, deputy leader of NZ First, opposing a register of pecuniary interests for MPs. And yes, Peter, it has been.

UPDATE 3: David Farrar has a host of questions that a believer in Winston's immaculate integrity would need to believe if they are to maintain their idolatry.

UPDATE 4: And little comment at all, apparently, from blogs or politicians further left. Go figure.

Their Standard

It's instructive that most of NZ's top ranking political blogs are run by people who are self-employed. Of the top ten political blogs as measured by Tumeke, Kiwiblog, Public Address, Whale Oil, Not PC, The Hive, Poneke and No Minister are all largely run by people like myself who are self-employed. No Right Turn? Who would know.

Which leaves just two certain exceptions: the Greens' Frog Blog, which is run by Green MPs and paid parliamentary staffers (and recently touting their high ranking 'high flyers'), and the group blog The Standard, of which two of the bloggers are Beehive communications employees, a third is the Labour Party Head Office Communications Manager, and a fourth and maybe a fifth are employed by the Engineering, Printing & Manufacturers' Union (EPMU).

The Greens are at least up front with their rort. Not so the Labour Party and Their Standard. David Farrar and Whale Oil have the story.

Remember this is the same Labour Party that purportedly introduced the Electoral Finance Act to protect "transparency" in politics. Yeah, right.

A novel EFA prosecution

Everyone's fallen foul of the Electoral Finance Act, and now news is just in that despite his non-existence God is to be prosecuted for promoting ... some damn party or other.  God knows which one.

Why the left likes MMP

If you want to know the reason the left are solidly in support of MMP, then listen to Laila Harre on Kathryn Ryan's show this morning [audio here]. 

The ostensible reason the left supports MMP is because First Past the Post is "undemocratic," delivering government too often to parties that didn't receive the majority of votes cast.  "Under FPP, plurality and majority were synonymous ... thanks to the distortions of the undemocratic election system," says No Right Turn, "we live in a proper democracy now, under MMP."  "Pro-FPP respondents" are "less inclined to show any sympathy for the principles of broad-based majority government than [are] supporters of MMP," says political 'scientist' Jack Vowles.  "What is the problem with MMP?" asks the Green Party. "Could it be the way MMP means everyone’s votes count rather than just those in swing seats?" 

The clinching argument for many people supporting MMP was this idea that FPP was essentially undemocratic, that, for example, in 1978 and 1981 "Muldoon retained power ... despite National receiving fewer votes than Labour in both elections."  A commenter at the Double Standard sums up the unspoken feeling, that "in the last 36 years, the only occasions National has really beaten Labour are 1975 and 1990. National’s other wins have either been with fewer votes than Labour (1978 and 1981), the result of extreme vote-splitting (1993), or betrayal (1996). And even in 1990, an MMP election would have resulted in a hung parliament..."

And there you have the real reason the left supports MMP, and why the red blogosphere reacted en bloc when John Boy raised the trial balloon of a referendum on MMP -- a referendum that voters had voted for back in 1993! It's nothing to do with democracy at all, it's because MMP is more likely to keep the Tories feet from under the Treasury Benches. (And remember, any corruption is justified in doing that job!  After all, to a certain type of mind, ""Freedom of speech and political association and action is subordinate to the class war.")

Hence Harre on Nine to Noon this morning, eagerly doing her sums this morning to show everyone scared of Tory Government that if Labour can pull down 35% of the vote in November and if National gets less than 50% then with a little bit of overhang courtesy of the Maori Party and Anderton's Progressives the Red Team could still form a government.

Based on previous criticisms by the left of how FPP helps parties retain power despite them receiving fewer votes, one would think that such a situation would outrage them.  One might think that, except that it is transparently clear that the reason for MMP (and the Electoral Finance Act)has nothing to do with delivering "democratic government," and everything to do with keeping the Tories from the Treasury benches.

UPDATE: I should point out two things here that I"d have thought were obvious, but a couple of emails have suggested otherwise:

1. The fact that the left are terrified of the Tories getting the Treasury benches doesn't mean there's anything for them to to be terrified about.  The fact is that the difference between a government led by Labour and one led by Labour-Lite is like the choice between Fosters and XXXX.  However you slice it, it's both unpalatable and indistinguishable.
2. That the Greens co-leader person says comparing National and Labour is like comparing Coke to Pepsi, and that the Greens can "work with either," doesn't alter the truth that it's the Tories they see as the Great Satan. As Vernon Small said yesterday in The Dom's headline, "Greens' fears of old enemy colour views."  Says Small  “However they slice it and dice it, there is no real chance of the Greens ever preferring National over Labour. Pretending otherwise defies the policy reality," and every Green supporter knows that. Green posturing now is more about creating pre-election illusions of "independence," and a pre-negotiation position of being nobodies lapdog -- but everyone knows in which lap they'll be basking once the blocs start forming.