Last chance to tweak MMP

The procrastination window for having a say on the tweaking of MMP is almost closed, with non-verbal submissions closing in two days. So, in the traditional Homer Simpson manner of doing a tax return, I'm sellotaping, copying and pasting this blog post as a submission. For new readers, please pardon the French. I'm from Palmy, eh.

The short answer to the MMP question is, I agree with everything Great Wonk Andrew Geddis said here. Change the List Vote threshold from 5 to 2.5 percent. LITFA* for by-election candidates, dual candidacy, order of List candidates, overhangs, and the ration of List to Electorate MPs.

* LITFA = Leave It The F*ck Alone. Status quo.

As an introduction for the scenic route, I consider that six seasons of MMP has proven fairly successful. New Zealand has enjoyed stable, predictable government, of both minority and majority hues. NZ has enjoyed an absence of coups in that time. Every government has lasted the constitutionally recognised three year term without imploding, which is more than you can say for some Developed World nation states (Canada, Belgium, Italy, Greece).

However, MMP has encountered one major flaw. There has been a failure to produce any new political representation in Parliament. Every single party since 1996 has either been an incumbent, or formed from the demagoguery of waka jumpers to secure a seat in the House for their new political vehicle (Greens and Progs from Alliance, Maori Party from Labour, Mana from the Maori Party). The only party to ever crack into Parliament from the outside was led by a former Parliamentarian, with Richard Prebble leading the Act Party into the Legislative Chamber at MMP's birth in 1996.

I consider the five percent threshold for representation primarily responsible for this outcome. Any new political movement is staring at a target of around 100,000 voters to get into Parliament, slightly less than the quota for calling a Citizens' Initiated Referendum. Compared with the insider knowledge and various advantages of the incumbent parties (for example, the Broadcasting Allocations for TV exposure), new political movements stand no chance to build their base. The hurdle is too damned high.

There are symptoms of this abyss. Since MMP's introduction, the fastest growing segment of the body politic has been the Enrolled Non Vote. Clearly, something in the machinery of proportional representation has fouled up to make this the case. Fully one quarter of the populace was disenfranchised by omission in last year's general election. This democratic deficit needs patching.

The original royal inquiry into the electoral system in 1986 recommended a four percent threshold. The rationale for this was to ensure nutjobs didn't hold the balance of power. I contend that this threshold hasn't prevented nutjobs from entering Parliament; Alamein Kopu, Gordon Copeland, John Banks and Richard Prosser, to name a few. Parliament has endured without damage. Indeed, the general electorate has if anything proven only too happy to chuck out parties who play silly buggers. RIP Alliance, Mauri Pacific, Progs.

The threshold for List representation in the Party Vote should be lowered to 2.5 percent. The lower threshold would eliminate the electorate seat exception which appears to screw the electoral scrum with dirty deals in Fortress Epsom and Ohariu Pa. Why should, as Graeme Edgeler said here, Epsom voters get more power than other electorates? It defies the convention of proportionality:

35. But while that was not in itself unfair, what was wrong was that it was the voters of Epsom who had the power to decide whether the 85,496 people who gave ACT their party vote were going to be represented.

2.5 percent equates to 50,000 votes, around the same size as an electorate. So what if an electorate is spread out over the entire country? They should still have representation. You can trust the electorate to judge them the next time around on their merits.

OK, that's the threshold done and dusted. The last five points of contention are straight forward.

 I have no worries about existing List MPs standing in by elections, or of candidates standing for both Electorate and List seats. If the Greens consider outspending the Act Party in the Mt Albert by election as money well spent, good for them. The party can choose its calculus for national exposure versus winning the seat. The public can read, write and execute the final say at the voting booth.

But don't expect them to be experts at the raw code. Giving voters the opportunity to rank List candidates is like Marxism; nice in theory but devastating in practice. MMP works with a Two Ticks front end. The punters don't have to know how to compute the Sainte-Laguë back end. Hell, even a political animal like me doesn't know how that formula works. But it does. Do not add undue complexity to this elegance, especially when the marginal utility of shuffling the List positions is three quarters of bugger all.

Overhangs and the balance of List to Electorate seats are part of the package, not bugs in the system. Do not muck with these settings.

The devil you know

Justice Minister Simon Power has announced the first details of what the MMP referendum will look like in 2011:

The first referendum would ask voters if they wanted to keep MMP, or not. It would also ask what alternative voting system was preferred from a list of options.

Pretty much as proposed by David Farrar early last month. If this is to be done, this is the way to do it. There remains little sign of public discontent with MMP. Its faults require tweaks, not the axe. Rest assured, this pre-election promise will be put to bed in 2011.

The Neverending Referendum

Right at this very moment, up in bible belt Mt Roskill, Act MP John Boscawen is holding a meeting to discuss his borrowed Burrows private members' bill to define the smack for parental correction. Meantime, Section 59 petitioner Larry Baldock is flying very close to self-parody by calling for a referendum on the referendum.

This comes a few months after Rodney Hide suggested local body referenda as a sop to public consultation on the future Supercity. This point did not go down at all well. Right at this very moment, I'd say that the general electorate is getting heartily sick of hearing about referenda/dum full stop. Public intellectual Andrew Geddis has my full support in suggesting ditching the Citizens' Initiated Referenda Act altogether.

So it seems at bit weird timing for the MMP referendum question to raise its head right now. Yes, it was part of the Nat election promises. True, with two years to go before the next election, now would be sufficient foreshadowing to prepare the public for such a momentous decision (unlike the CIRs, this one would be binding). But still, a referendum-weary and leery public is a dangerous beast to approach.

I remember the electoral reform referenda in the 90s. I remember the impotent rage of a general electorate sick of being lied to by politicians, and venting it with a vengeance. Never mind the reason for that rage was largely fixed by Ruth Richardson's Fiscal Responsibility Act, a signal had to be sent all the same.

I also remember the attempts by the Electoral Commission sending out brochures trying to explain 5 different voting systems to the lay people, so they could make an informed choice. Needless to say, you'd have as much success teaching my cat to type.

MMP became the main contender against FPP mainly due to the earlier Royal Commission's recommendations. Not that the Commission's findings were followed to the letter. Maori seats remained. The threshold of 5 percent or one electorate seat was set, a higher barrier than the one recommended by the Commission.

But everything's changed since that choice. As mentioned on NatRad's Politics segment this morning, there's not exactly been marches down Lambton Quay on electoral dissatisfaction with MMP. Peter Shirtcliffe may still be miffed, but it's not as if he can realistically hope to regain FPP. That's dino's dead. Supplementary Member voting would have a hell of an uphill battle getting through to people, if for no other reason than the double entendre title.

The only realistic alternative to MMP is STV. Local body elections are already increasingly moving to this system, and changing the national system to match would greatly simplify informed decision-making for the citizens. Realistic but not practical. MMP is good enough and you can't keep mucking about with these things.

On the whole, I think Key will be treating the issue as a tick for things promised and delivered. Unless there's a lot of private money suddenly pouring into websites and pamphlets pushing for an alternative popular electoral system, I'd say that MMP will breeze through with barely a concern next election.

The alternative doesn't bear thinking about. Oh no, not another referendum after that. Even for a politics junkie like me, that's too much. It's good enough reason for me to tick MMP in two years time. And can someone please discreetly strangle the Citizens' Initiated Referenda Act?

Electoral Finance Act repealed

The Panda, the Bananas, and We the People

The Panda has returned to take another swipe at Labour's House of Bamboo, this time on the risks of ad-hoc banana republicanism. A nibble at the Privy Council thing here, a munch on the bending of conventions there, a caustic piss over MMP in the corner. All of a sudden, the MSM and the Republican Movement are taking this meander as support for becoming a republic. Strange, that.

As Mike Moore points out in this bFM interview, he believes his thoughts have been misconstrued. All he meant to point out was the importance of process on any constitutional change. The implied thrust of his opinion piece was a dig at the Clark administration, not a rallying call to ditch the Queen tomorrow. In the media scrum however, any news is good news, especially on a topic as esoteric as republicanism.

The Ozzies are forming a cross-party consensus on becoming a republic, sez Mike. Inevitably, this will spur the limited imaginations of the New Zealand populace into raising the issue here. The Panda fears that a hatchet job of republicanism will leave the country worse off than the current way of things. A process should be put in place to deal with the matter when the public get around to it, lest some populist twit buggers up the thing completely.

One can have some sympathy for this concern. Witness the outpouring of emotion from Sir Ed's passing, with suggestions of public holidays, mountains and flavours of ice cream being named in his honour. Thing is, all it takes is a simple majority in Parliament or a nod from some quango, and wha-hey, it is. No disrespect intended to Sir Ed. I met the man only once, serving him at the James Cook Hotel a while back. Sir Ed is too big for words (which is more than one could say about the tetchy Dame Kiri). But if one needed an example of the epitome of what a New Zealander could be, then you could do worse than point to Sir Ed.

DPF's post on the lack of royalty attending His Most Beloved member of the commonwealth, Knight of the Garter Sir Ed's funeral has stirred the pot somewhat. I whole-heartedly agree with DPF on this, and it's not just because we are fellow members of the Republican Movement. Listen to talkback, get some feedback.

It seems most Kiwis had a similar idea of what Sir Ed's funeral would look like in their heads, well before the inevitable came to be. He deserved the best, full honours of a state funeral, the works. This is the man on the $5 note for god sakes. It's a fair expectation for the titular head of state on the other side of the scrip should follow the script. If you want to go with convention, a head of state always goes to a state funeral.

But conventions count for naught these days. All power, no responsibility; the role of the eunuch brought to modern times. Which describes exactly the role of Governor-General these days. In the Court of the Crimson Queen, everything is red, right down to the Government House staffers.

Convention has not prevented the Foreign Minister sitting outside cabinet, in essence reporting to Helen Clark only and not the government caucus. It has not prevented the Green party getting ministerial funding without even being part of government. Convention has not stopped the election rules being rigged.

In spite of efforts to constrain the powers of government with MMP, it is obvious that unbridled power is still in effect. The Supreme Court push was the right thing done the wrong way. Lucky for us, Dame Sian has shown sufficient judicial activism to demonstrate a greater check on government than the Privy Council. The jury's still out on whether the Supreme Court will pick up the Bill of Rights ball and do something interesting.

For some, it might be the Anti-Ear Flicking Law that brought things to a head. Others might have seen a line in the sand crossed by the manner and form of how the Electoral Finance Act was enacted (They had so much potential and Labour squandered it. A bit like the economy, really). For me, it was a combination of the New Jew Smoking Laws and the Tuhoi Terrorist surveillance.

I succinctly remember watching that Monday night's news showing the dawn raid on the Abel Smith St house and feeling nervous. They were arresting people willy-nilly. I am involved in a number of causes that might be of interest to the powers that be; Republican Movement, NORML, incendiary blogging, to name a few. Although I'm armed with nothing more than 26 letters and about a dozen punctuation marks, it doesn't mean the powers that be understand that. There was a knock at my door. On TV, cops were busting windows. "That'll be the cops," I thought. I was genuinely spooked when I went to the door. Collecting for Plunket, thank Dagg. No! Go away!

It shouldn't get to this, but it has. Reading the level of state surveillance Tame Iti's Flightless Circus was put under, I have been nagged by the thought of writing to Helen Clark. In her capacity as Minister responsible for the SIS, GCSB and other matters pertaining to civil surveillance, I wanted to ask for some reassurance that my life and habits weren't being monitored like Tame Iti's was. But would the reply be worth a damn?

Throw your mind back to Mike Moore's original Guerrilla Noun Attack in the Herald, when Moore compared Clark with the Muldoon who read SIS dossiers on his opponents. Save Happy Valley was infiltrated by SOE informants. The Tuhoe terrorists had an informant in their midst. I wouldn't be surprised if even NORML has a government spy in the membership somewhere. Maybe I've been reading Gravity's Rainbow too long, but I call it justifiable paranoia. What's stopping the state surveillance octopus sticking its tentacles where they don't belong?

The proposed Organised Crime Agency is something else we never agreed to sign on to, let alone the Neo-ANZUS biometric database from the Land of the Free and Home of the Paranoid. In no time at all, New Zealand will darken under the same security blanket foisted on the UK and US citizenship. If the loss of privacy and personal details is a small price to pay to protect the UK from Islamic Daleks, that's their choice. But since Islamic Daleks do not fucking exist, I strongly resent the unjustifiable intrusions into what is none of the New Zealand government's (or some foreign government's) business.

This is all getting too intense. Time for Spike Milligan as a Pakistani Dalek:



Ah, that's better.

Moore is correct in saying that a constitution is a limit on government, not a treatise of wish-fulfillment. It is not wish-fulfilment to want to keep the right to silence, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Yet it hasn't prevented the Criminal Proceeds Bill from wending its way through select committee, promising to not only penalise people on balance of probabilities, but make the police a fully-autonomous profit-making revenue stream. It hasn't stopped a retiring QC from describing the right to silence as outdated and should be abolished:

"I did not subscribe to the divine right of silence. Those rules were promulgated years ago in Great Britain when the public were uneducated, most of them illiterate."

These days, of course, we have no uneducated, illiterate people. Everyone is a legal expert.

So, a written constitution is the rights and responsibilities of the structure of government. The closest New Zealand has to such a thing is the Treaty of Waitangi and the Constitution Act 1986. The former was drawn up in a matter of days, a half-arsed ambiguously worded document. The latter outlines the very bare essentials of government. Elections every three years, etc. The Bill of Rights Act 1990 has so far been demonstrated as nothing more than a doormat for the government of the day to wipe its feet on.

I am a Republican because I believe that this country can do better than that. I believe that the citizens of this place shouldn't have to continually battle the state to maintain basic freedoms, freedoms that only require a simple majority in parliament to remove.

I believe in the ultimate supremacy of the people, not the allegedly greater glory of the Prime Minister. I believe in a clear enunciation of how executive government works, seeing as how MMP has smudged the margins of the Westminster system beyond recognition. Coalition-keeping has shifted the power from the caucus to the cabbalists. I believe that the role of Prime Minister needs greater checks and balances beyond the scope of the party caucus.

I believe that the state should only interfere in our personal lives if they have a list of bloody good reasons, not just paranoia, hunches, and latest research findings in the Women's Weekly. If someone ends up before the courts, justice should be swift, fair and open.

And I believe in a head of state that goes to the funeral of New Zealand's favourite son.

Dodging definitions in EFB

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul have demonstrated how easy it is to avoid proscriptive definitions on electoral advertising:



No-one is soliciting a vote for Ron Paul. All the blimp asks is that you Google him.

EFB Live

The marathon on the EFB has started. It's good TV til Outrageous Fortune. Just caught the end of a round of Points of Order that ended up recalling a very grumpy Margaret Wilson to the House. There are still no sign of the 150 amendments alluded to by DPF in the public realm.

Oh dear, votes now being taken on a number of amendments proposed by Chris Finlayson. Insert a word here, a subclause there. A vocal vote is taken, someone objects, party votes are taken labouriously. Each vote comes out the same: 56-65. It's fillibusting on a base level.

Maybe I'll just watch the sunset instead...

Final thoughts before urgency

Labour are determined to enhance participatory democracy by ramming through the Electoral Finance Bill by the end of the year. Tomorrow will see the start of one of the harshest, meanest, longest sittings in NZ's parliamentary history. For their sins, Labour have only themselves to blame. What remains to be seen is whether the Greens can regain any of the moral high ground.

It seems like yesterday that I was sitting in class listening to Dr Helena Catt outline her thoughts on how electoral finance could be reformed. It involved true transparency of election funding, with both state and private contributions playing their part. What with Parliamentary Services and the broadcasting allocations currently used to fund party advertising, it is a no-brainer to include taxpayer funding in any new scheme.

It involved simplicity, thereby fostering public participation by clarifying what the rule book said.

I may have misheard, but what little Dr Catt said about "third party" regulation involved a carrot and stick approach. Yes, third parties could be registered, but in return they too might have dibs on public funding to express their voices come election time. It was an inspired way to address the democratic deficit of falling voter turnout. Get people involved in third parties and lobby groups, saying things in their own voice in their own way. Handshake it into the mainstream audience through allocated funding. Brilliant.

So, back in April 2006, the Electoral Commission had a pretty good idea of how to tidy the whole thing up. There was nothing preventing the government from throwing these ideas out to the public forum then and there. Ineptly, they bled the state funding story out to test the waters.
It was an early sign of a complete mishandling of such a delicate matter. The waters seethed like a Rotorua mudpool and the government threw up their hands up in pain and defeat, dismissing public funding as political suicide.

Instead, they chose a more drawn-out method of self-immolation. The Electoral Finance Bill was drawn up in secret, a most novel method of increasing democratic participation.

The Electoral Funding Symposium in June was timed to coincide with the release of the draft EFB. It was a reasonable enough assumption. A light Order Paper allowed ample time for the process of legislating the Bill. Who in their right mind would attempt to push through such a controversial Bill less than 12 months before a general election?

The Symposium was to provide a forum on the EFB. Lacking a body to dissect, it ended up being an interesting morning of case studies and overview of existing electoral finance structures, followed by a yawning range of party policy statements in the afternoon.

The launch of the Electoral Finance Bill in July made the KiwiSaver launch look lucid in comparison. Mark Burton couldn't sell umbrellas to Aucklanders, let alone such a mish-mash of mischievous mayhem. I'm flabbergasted that none of Labour's strategists saw this mess coming. What is it with this year? Who died or quit? 2007 seems to be the year Labour lost its head and went feral.

And I have an abiding suspicion that the left wing voting bloc is going to get very feral next year. Methinks Labour have put a big banana skin in the path of the Greens and the Greens are blithely heading straight for it. Even in its current incarnation, the EFB will end up biting the Greens more than Labour. By supporting the EFB, the Greens may be creating their own nemesis.

Judging from Jeanette Fitzsimons launching the F Bomb on the steps of parliament, they are keenly aware of what is at stake. If the Greens are responsible for moderating the EFB in such a way that NORML may be exempt from its effect, that's all well and good. However, it does not remove the very strange precedents still embedded in this Bill. It does not mitigate the reprehensible way this Bill was put together, nor the way it will be rammed through without proper public consultation and input.

How can the Greens salvage some integrity? It's a shame that National have ruled out any deals on the Bill. For National, not the Greens. The Nats have eliminated any chance for bonus points on the Section 59 precedent. John Key will not save the day this time. It's up to the Green MPs to score the points instead.

On a minor victory level, the Greens could amend where they can, and admit the Bill is flawed and ugly. They could agree to the EFB on condition that an amendment is included that terminates the EFB after the next election. It would coincide with the death of the Interim Meaning Bill too. Russel Norman has gone on record for supporting a Citizen's Jury. A Royal Commission does not rule this out. The Nats have already said they'll repeal, so there's nothing lost in the end.

If the Greens are looking for a dramatic flourish, there's another option. Kill the Bill. Not in its entirety, just on necessary clauses. No-one in Labour has yet demonstrated the fixation on January 1st being the start of the regulated period. Three months prior is the generally accepted standard. Vote down January 1 and stick with three months. One could quibble over things such as fixing the election date in stone (notwithstanding a vote of no-confidence) as a pre-requisite. Or the Greens could throw out defintion (ii), therefore defining an electoral advertisement only as attempting to persuade to vote or not vote explicitly for a party or candidate (i).

Nandor, Meyt and Keith crossed the floor for the Dog Microchipping Bill. Surely they can do it again for a much more important reason?

The grass may be greener but the streets are meaner

Maybe I've been reading too much of Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series, but spring is now ingrained as the opening of Campaign Season. It's that time of year when anything is possible. Let the die fly high.

The festival circuit posters are out. I've already committed to going to the RaggaMuffin gig, come Hell or Helen. Tempted by Kiwiburn, now WOMAD's gone all commercial like Big Day Out. Also pondering requesting a spot in the Speakers Tent at Parihaka. No, not yet. The timing is all wrong. Maybe after a spell at Toastmasters. Yeah, that'll do it. We can't all be teachers or lawyers, used to speaking in public. Gotta kill that "don't fuck it up" mantra thing that keeps happening.

Well, it's about time to settle into a theme I suppose. How about a recap of the previous week? It's been good stuff.

Last Monday, attending the NZ Drug Foundation's AGM. They got the boring crap out of the way pronto, and featured a debate between some university teams debating "All Drugs Should Be Legalised." Charles Chauvel was moderating. Nice to see him continue turning up in all the right places. The audience decided that the negative team proved the most convincing, including me. Great fun for seeing what the lie of the land is. Tricky, but not insurmountable. I seriously rate the choice of chocolate cake served afterwards. It gave a whole new perspective to the definition of drug. Damn that anandamide!!

On Wednesday, attended the march to parliament on the Electoral Finance Bill. Got many beeps walking into town on the way there for my double-sided placard. On one side, "People, not PR and Pledge Card" (I ran out of room for the plural). On the other, it said "Greens! WTF u doing?" Both sides were subscripted with "This electoral advertisement was authorised by me."For the record, the sign did not say "fuck."

I had no idea of the huge drama that a chaotic event like an upturned plane on a runway would cause, even when Stephen Franks kept going on about it when I bumped into him on the way to Civic Square. Here he was, telling me the march was turning to custard, and here's me poking and prodding for completely different information. Inappropriate conversation is my forte. Get me on a roll and I can put both feet in my mouth with ease. It's why I'm gun-shy of influential people.

At Civic Square, I strike up awkward conversation with the grouplets of fellow marchers, managing to alienate one Act supporter with anti-Gary Mallet comments (Honestly, bring back Catherine Judd). Oh, the march has started, thank Dagg. Leisurely stroll down Lambton Quay, a street built for marching down (although the University-Terrace-Beehive route is still the best).

Young Labour turn up wearing John Key masks. I recognise a few of them straight off. Good on them for adding to the limited theatrics. Their antics spark a response in the marchers, who drown out the gatecrashers through necessity. Bump into some guy marching along with an effigy of Winston Peters. Arrive at parliament and a TradeMe of speakers ensues. Fair go to DPF for giving it a go on the mike. Good on Jeanette Fitzsimons for fronting up. You have my respect but still not my vote.

Thursday, lunch with Rick Giles at the Backbencher. Rick is an Almost Disappeared Person and the guy with the Winston effigy. Small world, small march. Off to Wellington Airport to catch a Pacific Blue flight to Auckland. Omfg, they've brought US customs to NZ's laissez-faire air travel. The paranoiacs have taken Joe Bennett far too seriously.

Metal detectors and x-ray machines? Thank Dagg I wasn't wearing my usual belt, the one that gets me spreadeagled at parliament every time. Hasn't anyone told the control freaks that security is an illusion? The best one can hope for is to minimise one's reasons to become a target. Security is therefore an oxymoron.

American security traditions, ripened for decades by the McNamara agenda, have finally burst forth on state departments around the globe. Tasers are the non-lethal stock option du jour. Revenue is soaring! Tasers are the de rigeur non-lethal shock option for cops. During the NZ taser trial, the thing was used 19 times. According to the logic used to justify its use, 19 cop lives were saved due to the taser. What's the Death on the Job rate for cops? Surely it's not 19 a year? N-n-n-n-19? No way.

Taxes may not be rising, inflation may be low, but the price of safety just keeps going up. What's the going rate for a late model taser? How about those goddamned metal detectors and x-ray machines back at the airport terminal purgatory? For my return trip to Auckland, $7.14. Now I paid McDonalds Airways a hundred and something bucks for my flights. $7.14 is a big bite of their margin.

If $7.14 is the price of ensuring that Tame Iti hasn't trained some ninja pilots to take over a 747 and fly it into the Beehive, so be it. However, since this stunt happening is so unbelievably improbable, I strongly resent paying a tuppenny fuck for being treated worse than a towelhead. $7.14 would have bought me a red wine to enjoy on my flight, instead of being heavied by the rubber-glove brigade. Future flying will now be subject to a thirty percent increase in security costs. $9.32 and rising. When will someone say no? I'll second them.

I hadn't been to Auckland since selling up the Shoebox in Wellesley St West back in '04. It was well-timed, before the leaky building clusterfuck really took hold of the body corporates and just before the CBD was so utterly saturated with apartments. Landing at Auckland airport was a doddle. I had forgotten how truly horrible the traffic was.

One hiccupped rendezvous later and we're heading out west, to the Pope of Dope's official residence in the Waitakere Ranges. Two wood pigeons parked up in the bush greet us on arrival. The view is astounding. It's all there, Rangitoto, Sky City (albeit as a prick on the horizon). It's the Auckland I never knew. Wait! What's that sound in the distance? Is it... public transport railway?

Friday day is prep day. Lots of mouths to feed this weekend. Head into town for the 4:20 near Albert Park. Maryjane, the Cannabus is there, up and running after only three years from its inception. After a significant smoke, a crowd heads out on the bus into Auckland Friday night gridlock. I get out while the bus is idling near the Viaduct, heading around the waterfront and across to the North Shore on the ferry.

Head on round to RRB's house, a cigarette's length from the jetty. From there, it's off to the Northcote Tavern, a throwback to the glorious bar and bistro days of my childhood. It's Friday night and there's fuck all people there, for shame. Not trendy enough, eh. RRB and the Northcote's chef share a walking bus connection, spinning a yarn in the garden bar. She cooks up a nice scotch fillet and chips too.

Saturday morning, head out to Prince's Wharf to attend the NORML annual conference on board Te Aroha. It's a good meeting, and my paper on what the latest version of the Electoral Finance Bill means for NORML is well received. Now I'm committed to writing to the Electoral Commission to seek guidance on NORML's response to the EFB.

The AGM is wrapped up quickly, as the party-goers are about to board. It's time for cruising the harbour, relaxation, irie tunes, loads of kai, and the "Show Your Grow" competition (a spin-off from the annual Cannabis Cup). The co-host has provided beer and steaks, as well as other festive amenities. I grab a Steinie and crank up the barbie. Not 200 yards away, a police launch wanders past. It'll pass by discreetly another three or five times during the evening, as bass booms and clouds of smoke diffuse in our wake.

After I've backlogged the buffet for the 70 people on board, I head up to the Auckland's heads in the bowls. After years of tolerating Wellington's bush weed, it was a real pleasure to get to see some fine Auckland skunk again. Aucklanders won't touch bush. It's skunk or nothing. About a dozen entries and there's three outstanding ones. One bud, big as your fist, sits there begging to be scratched and sniffed. I feel like Neil Miller at the Beer Festival, or Jules at Toast Martinborough.

New Zealand is a nation for Epicureans. Our Rieslings are up there with Germany. While our Cab/Merlots have a way to go before we top the Ozzies (Penfold's Grange, Mmmmmm. Sorry Mr Brajkovich!), the Pinots are getting there. Three cheers for Tuatara Pale Ale! Dagg bless that Manuka Honey! Woohoo for Kapiti Foods and Puhoi too! And the lamb... The lamb lies down on Ohakune potato mash and mint jus. New Zealanders are the best growers and seeders of cannabis in the world. We outrank Marrakesh, Amsterdam and Nepal in quality. This is no hashish, dudes. This is the real fluffy thing. Smells sweetish-minty too.

The winner ends up being G. There were many mentions on the night of "hitting the G spot". It's a Northern Lights/White Pearl cross. The dude has been growing hard out for three years and this fine young horticulturalist deserved the win.

The partygoers depart, and the boat straddles the harbour for the night. Sunday is sloth day. Everyone's glad that the conference was done and dusted on Saturday, because it's the Mother of All Stone-overs on Sunday. The clouds burn off early in the day, and the harbour is ablaze in sun.
Farewells in the afternoon. Head off on foot from Prince's Wharf to debrief myself at my bro's apartment in Parnell. The heat coming off the bitumen makes it a stinking hot walk. There's cold beers in the fridge, although Randy is in Tauranga dealing with Family Matters. Refresh, reboot, and up to The Bog, before ferreting back for a kip.

Monday, it's back to reality. Back to Wellington. Normal blogging will resume whenever the fuck.

Quantum effects in Electoral Finance Bill

I have worked out what has happened to the Electoral Finance Bill. It's been put through some form of particle accelerator. Nothing has been created or destroyed, it's just reappeared elsewhere in a different form. Take, for example, the deleted clause exempting government departments from the effects of the EFB (Section 119AA). The souped-up EFB has much the same effect appear elsewhere, in the definition of who can or can't be a third party. Section 4 (2) (e):

14 Persons eligible to be third party
(2) The following are ineligible to be a third party:
(e) each of the following persons or bodies:
(i) the chief executive (however described) of a
department of State or Crown entity: 20
(ii) a department of State:
(iii) a Crown entity:
(iv) a State enterprise (within the meaning of section
2 of the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986) or a
Crown-owned company: 25
(v) any other instrument of the Crown

If government departments by definition cannot be third parties, then they are exempted. N'est-ce pas?

Apres aujourd'hui, la deluge

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I've looked all through my metaphor bag, but I can't find anything remotely apt to compare with the J&E report on the Electoral Finance Bill. A sprig of parsley added to a dog's breakfast? No. Less sensible and illogic than any religious text ever written? Nope. I give up.

Best thing to do is ignore it. Sure, I'm going to the march on Wednesday, but there's no way in hell I'm going to take heed of whatever responsibilities the Electoral Finance Bill foists on me. Am I going to stick posters around town without putting my home address on them? You betcha. Am I going to register as a third party with the Electoral Commission? Make me. Am I going to push the new and untested legal fictions contained in this Bill just for the hell of it? I'll see you in court.

I won't be alone. There's a whole heap of farmers going to be there too. Flush from the Fonterra money fountain, a resurgent rural sector will be keen to express their views come the election. And they don't give a good god-damned buggery fuck what the Electoral Finance Bill says. Over in the corner will be the grass-roots activists whom the Labour administration has done so well at alienating in recent weeks.

Or maybe not. The Electoral Commission has been charged with overseeing the whole thing; parties, candidates and "third parties". And they have, ummm, 42 days to get their infrastructure in place.

Fry Hard

How rhetorical is this?

Helen Clark has promised that government departments are not going to cheerlead for them next election. Why then was not only Madeleine Setchell's job with Ministry of the Environment canned, but her replacement was a Labour flunky?



Are all passive-aggressive personalities now terrorists? That would explain the attempt at introducing Anti-Social Behaviour Orders then. Oh, come on... you can't take those transcripts as a serious threat to public safety? Good on the DomPost printing them and all. But seriously, my old man had more guns than the entire Freedom Fighter army, including a semi-automatic .22 fitted with a nightsight. The bunnies never stood a chance.

If I had to pick a winner between wingnut Tame Iti and a squad of stormtrooper Xs, my money's on the Allblackwaters:



Wait! This just in! Police have arrested four Maori men attempting to harness the sun with a flax net. Maybe Tame Iti will prove to be an artist after all.

Now the crayon has dried on the Health Select Committee's report recommending a ban on BZP, how long before the big bangs are banned? And is there anything that the government HASN'T given to the Law Commission to work on? Will Helen Clark inserting the Sim card into the Law Commission deck make any difference to the Misuse of Drugs Act re-write, or will Geoff Palmer put his reputation first? And will Crown Law ever grow a backbone?

Tomorrow is the anticipated date for the J&E committee to report back on the Electoral Finance Bill. DPF reckons that that will provide a six day window to read the latest Rigging Yarn. I have half a mind to wag work and go to this:

Stop the Labour/NZ First/Greens Electoral Finance "Gagging Bill"

What you can do:

Protest March: Auckland this Saturday 17 November from the Auckland Town
Hall at 10.30am (assemble from 10am)

Protest: Wellington next Wednesday, 21 November, for a march on Parliament.

This is to invite you to stand up and be counted.

ACT member John Boscawen is organising marches in Auckland and Wellington
to protest the Labour led Government's attack on democracy.

The Electoral Finance Bill is designed to curb political activity.

Labour and NZ First with help from the Greens and United Future are about to
ram through a law to gag free speech.

This despite vociferous objection from the Human Rights Commission, the Law
Society, Grey Power and concerned citizens from every sector of New Zealand
society.

The plan is to give Labour freedom to say what it likes in election year and
gag everyone else.

Once the Gagging Bill goes through - possibly as soon as next week - it will
be against the law for me to send an email such as this.

That's why the Human Rights Commission talks about a "chilling" impact on
democracy.

That's why this is a Gagging Bill by any other name and must be stopped.

Join the marches

If you want to help contact John@boscawen.co.nz

A blurt at the J&E committee

Well, I did my blurt on the Electoral Finance Bill today. I sat in on the select committee from 2 to 4, watching video conference submissions, hearing audio conference submissions of wildly varying sound quality, as well as a handful of old-fashioned in-person submissions. One thing's certain, that there's a lot of concerned citizens out there; 585 written submissions and around a hundred orals. One dude drove down from Napier to give his first ever select committee oral submission in person. The people are pissed off.

Originally, I had planned to walk into parliament with duct tape over my mouth labelled Electoral Finance Bill. I had printed up a sign saying: "Gudday, my name is Will. I'm here for the J&E select committee, Room 4. Can you please tell me where to go? Ta." At the bottom was "Authorised by the Ministry of Freedom" and my home address. Thank Dagg I didn't. I'd have suffocated or hyperventilated or something. Also, David Benson-Pope had turned up. The man has suffered enough and my idea would have sent entirely the wrong message.

The scrum of MPs sat around the table, laptops a go-go. Toshiba is the choice of Parliamentary Services, but there were a few renegades with their own, noticeably Rodney's Vaio. When the strain of craning my brain to listen to the cracklier conference call submissions got too much, I'd wander back out into the crisp sou-easter that prowled the parliamentary forecourt for a smoke. Then back through the X-Ray machine, just to make sure I hadn't suddenly strapped a hammer to my chest while I was out there. It's a bit like those crazy Finnish people who sit in saunas then roll in the snow, but repeated ad nauseam. I don't see the thrill.

If you don't have the right letter on your sticker, Parliament can be a very unfriendly place. Between the public entrance and the select committee rooms, there's nary a drop of refreshments to be had, not so much as a Coke machine. I could have bought a souvenir plate but even that store was shut. Behind the MPs in Room 4, there's this tray of food and drink for their pleasure. Water, coffee, biscuits, fruit platters, sitting like Tantalus. An hour and a half into the proceedings, I'm called up to the chair. I've got five minutes and they're running behind time so please be concise.

A deep breath and... blurt. Third party nonsense bad enough, but the rort in favour of the party is breathtaking. Chief Electoral Officer being responsible for monitoring candidates and third parties, something that hasn't previously been their function. Meantime, the party is monitored by the Electoral Commission. Why are we using the UK and Canadian models, when their level of voter participation is about 20 percent worse than ours? Please pick a number at random between 1 and 158 and I'll rebut. Any questions?

Silence. I remember to start breathing again and realise my mouth has gone dry, like my mouth is stuffed with tampons. Rodney kindly asks a question. Good onya, Rodney. I return to my seat. Already, the L'Esprit de L'Escalier hits. Bugger. Bugger bugger bugger.

The vibe from all this is not good. A hypothetical Supplementary Order Paper was mentioned, talk of redefining not only electoral advertisement, but also third party. The report date for the J&E on the Electoral Finance Bill is set as 25 January 2008, nearly a month into when it is supposed to take effect. Either the regulated period is in for a big shift, or the J&E hearing was just a going-through-the-motions exercise. I fear the latter will prove true.

We Do What We're Polled

The J&E select committee have been very kind to me, giving a week's notice for my oral submission on the Electoral Finance Bill this Thursday. Some have not been so lucky, having only a day or two's notice. Now the aBc competition is out of the way, I've had a chance to continue researching my Thursday blurt.

Leaving aside all the third party nonsense for one moment, it is interesting what little loopholes are entrenched for existing parties. Take, for example, the definition of an electoral expense. Clause 59 of the Electoral Finance Bill echoes the Electoral Act's interpretation for candidates and parties:

Election expenses does not include the cost of any of the following:
(ii) the conduct of any survey or public opinion poll

I scrutineered for the Labour party in '87 before I was old enough to vote. I have used party databases from Labour, National and Act. Suffice it to say I have some inkling of what this exemption means. While the EFB wants to define everything except breathing as an election advertisement, parties are free to throw unlimited funds into polling of any description.

Databases of voter preferences are like gold to parties. They are more effective at niching one's message than the scatter shot approach of pamphleteering. As The Century of Self documentary demonstrates, if one can focus group the swinging voters and find something to yank their chains, the election is yours. Push-polling is not an election expense. Yeah Right. Kill the Bill.

Pissing on the electorate fence

Below is a draft of my submission for the EFB:

Summary

Kill this Bill. Throw this poorly Sellotaped, arrogantly presented, viciously swift, merciless and dangerous Bill in the rubbish and start again. Nail down the worst excesses of electoral abuse that occurred last election, the ones which necessitated retrospective legislation to excuse. For any more radical ideas, go the hustings with them and seek a mandate from the people.

Main Points

1. Where did this Bill come from? Certainly not the public. The closest this Bill came to public engagement was at the Electoral Symposium held in June at Victoria University, where various party hacks talked at the crowd. Consultation has been conducted under a cone of silence between support parties. Parliament does not have a mandate to propose any regulatory regime on alleged 'third parties'. The public have not demanded it.
2. The public response to retrospective legislation over election spending has been much less ethereal. The public understand that UnitedFuture and New Zealand First have outstanding debts to the taxpayer even after the rules were temporally re-written, and that these two parties support this doggerel Bill. The public will react accordingly at the next election.
   
3. The academics have not demanded this Bill. The Electoral Commission report to the Justice and Electoral Committee on the 2005 election only mentions third parties in passing, and only as a radical option once political parties submit to extensive disclosure requirements and limits on donations. Lacking any check and balance on the political parties, the Electoral Finance Bill cannot justify its draconian stifling of non-party political expression. Any Bill that so radically alters the democratic landscape should be led by open, transparent and wide consultation, explanation and debate, followed by a mandate to ensure legitimacy.
   
4. The definition of 'election advertisement' is way too nebulous to be taken seriously. Such a definition is so unenforceable, it begs to be ignored.
   
5. While the Electoral Finance Bill creates a severe and compliance-heavy regime for 'third parties' to follow, the rules on parties and candidates remain largely status quo. If anything, this Bill gives more loopholes for parties to exploit, even as it stands on the throat of public expression. The incumbent party on the government benches are particularly well-placed, as absolutely no controls are placed on government advertising.
6. The course is weighed heavily in favour of parties for anonymous donations as well. While $20,000 is the laundry limit for parties, 'third parties' are limited to a puny $500. I believe that this should be turned around. $500 limit for party and candidate anonymous donations, $20,000 for 'third parties'.
7. 'Third party' financial agents are solely authorised and responsible for any alleged 'election advertisement'. Party activity, on the other hand, may be authorised by the financial agent or "the party" Section 80(a)(i). The party is authorised but the party is not responsible. One more bad law in favour of the party.
   
8. The notion that one third of our lives are to be considered a "regulated period" of speech is a repugnant thing. If any part of the EFB crystallises the wrong, wrong, wrongness of this whole Bill, it is this. While three months is the standard unit of time to accord an electoral period, and is used in the case of by-elections in this Bill, the last four weeks is the real season. Until election day is set in legislation, at not at the whim of the incumbent, leave it alone.
9. As former Speaker Doug Kidd said at the Electoral Symposium: "Trust the People."

Conclusion

I strongly and respectfully advise the Justice and Electoral Committee to recommend to Parliament that this Bill not proceed. Thank you.

Self-inflicted gun shot to the head

What with Labour sitting in the poll doldrums and all, you'd think that Labour's strategists would realise that it would be a mortal mistake to introduce a really, really unpopular piece of legislation right now. What vote were they trying to court? Is there anybody who isn't pissed off with the Electoral Finance Bill?

I have been wading through the Electoral Finance Bill for some small time now. I'm about half way through. After a paragraph or two I have to put it down and make a cup of tea. I once read two pages at one time. I was almost overcome by the urge to fly up to Orkland put an axe in Helen Clark's electorate office door. Alas, it has been done before and it wasn't that effective the first time.

Where does one start? The loaded verbiage of 'third parties', as if NGOs are hoping to grab a seat on the Treasury benches? There's the first party, the second party and the third parties. Bollocks to that.

The idea that somehow the cops are going to go around busting Amnesty International for not filing an election return? Like fuck. The Chief Electoral Officer has a hard enough time getting returns from the political parties as it is. Can't find a link, but from memory the Libertarianz party was amongst a handful of parties who were late filing expense returns last election. As we saw last election, the police are justifiably averse to interfering in the political process. No-one was charged for a late return, or for that matter, spending more than the law permitted. More people to police is not going to encourage the cops to follow through.

I just checked my old LAWS 101 book to check that the police are officers of the Executive. If this bill is passed, Montesquieu would be spinning in his grave so fast, he'd be an infinite source of renewable energy.

Audrey Young has pointed out that with 158 clusterfucked clauses to work with, Bill English can bleed press statements on an almost hourly basis pointing out how bad this Bill is. I'd seen DPF's link to the Law Journal, but I didn't know that legal eagle Bernard Robertson had declared an 'any time, anywhere' duel 'with Labour on the matter until Audrey said so. Jeez, Labour sure know how to pick their enemies.

There is also the element that the Bill was deliberately poorly drafted, so a compromise on the essence would make us feel grateful for what freedoms were eventually authorised. This has not happened. There is a growing chorus to throw out the Bill in its entirety and start from scratch.

John Key has given an impressive speech laying out the scale of this flawed bill. It's been a while since I've seen such elegant speech-writing. It's all there, in words that anyone can grasp. If anyone videoed this speech, please put a link in comments. This is Winston's style; Churchill not Peters. It's that big.

The speech gives a calculated dig at the Greens' support for the Bill. Truly, this Bill is a poisoned chalice for the Greens. At the Electoral Symposium, Russel Norman sounded like the smartest guy in the room when he accurately detailed how the Canadian Citizens' Jury manifested support for proportional representation.

We covered this thing in Prof Elizabeth McLeay's post-grad course on the Democratic Audit last year. It wasn't the most efficient ways of garnering change, but it certainly was democratic. So I have some respect for Russel Norman, in that he knows what he is talking about. If you'd been at the Symposium you'd know what I mean. Every other political hack was talking out their fundament. Only Norman engaged. So it's fair to say that Russel Norman knows what is at stake by supporting the Electoral Finance Bill. Is this payback for the smacking bill? How feral is the hard left vote going to get?

Dr Helena Catt from the Electoral Commission came along to talk to the post-grad class one time. She was pushing the Canadian model, where parties are paid by the state at a rate commensurate to their vote. This is reflected in the Electoral Commission report on the 2005 election, where the public funding model was strongly pushed:

Clearly, the government was informed on the options. Clearly, they are aiming at the best of all possible worlds, where 'third parties' are goatse'd but political parties remained shrouded in vagarity.

When referring to the UK system of electoral campaigning, the Electoral Commission report does not mention the campaign time limits at all:

"UK parties do not receive any direct state funding for the election campaign. Each candidate is entitled to send an election pamphlet or letter to every voter in their electorate free of charge of postage. Each party is allocated time for ‘party political broadcasts’ on all TV channels simultaneously. The broadcast allocation reflects their size in parliament. Parties must report all donations in excess of £5,000 to the Electoral Commission on a quarterly basis, and on a weekly basis during elections. Third parties that wish to spend more than £10,000 in England, or £5,000 in each of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland supporting or opposing a party or group of candidates must register with the Electoral Commission as a recognised third party. There are limits on campaign expenditure by each candidate but not by the party."

John Key's speech was on to it, as he demonstrated how poorly Sellotaped together the Canadian and Westminster systems were:

"This cherry-picking of rules doesn't reflect the internal logic of either the Canadian or the UK system, and has resulted in a muddled and incoherent proposal."

I could go on, but it's been a very long day. There's more to come about what electoral reform should eventuate, why and how to get it.

Show me the way to go home...

Helen Clark and the Regulated Period

A press release from the Prime Minister’s office today announced that menstrual cycles will be strictly regulated in future. Instead of the usual five to seven days out of 28, women will be considered to be having their period continually from January 1st 2008.

Women will also have to provide proof that they are entitled to FHPs, and will need to appoint a gynaecological agent who will responsible for keeping track of them.

Women seeking Feminine Hygiene Products (FHP) will have to register with the Ministry of Menses, and are limited to 60 FHPs per year. An FHP is defined as any rag or implement which encourages, or is perceived to encourage, retention of menses.

Women’s groups around the country are up in arms. Prude Brewer, of advocacy group Glad Rag, says “This is a gross invasion of our rights. It is an affront to the dignity of women everywhere. There is blood on the government’s hands.”

Overkill Bill

The Electoral Finance Bill makes a dog's breakfast look like fine cuisine. Even dog tucker has more meat in it than this Bill. I can't refer to this Bill as vomit because even puke has a few carrots in it. This Bill is sicker than sick. All this time behind closed doors wrangling a majority with the minors for this? THIS??

The preamble admits that this Bill "significantly amends the Electoral Act 1993 and also amends the Broadcasting Act 1989." Dr Helena Catt, Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission, pointed out at the Electoral Symposium that there were twice that many Acts affecting electoral funding (buggered if I can remember them all). This Bill is not a holistic makeover of how elections are funded.

The policy objectives in this Bill include "promote participation in parliamentary democracy". This is the nub of it. Parliamentary democracy, not representative democracy. Parliament is supreme, not the people. If you're not in a professional party, then you won't be able to have your say. This is a power play.

I doubted my faculties when I read that third parties have to register with the Chief Electoral Officer, that they must appoint a financial agent to act as martyr. But the one that really whammed home was the part where third parties had to HAND OVER to the Chief Electoral Officer any anonymous donations over $500 for the WHOLE YEAR.

This one hit home. I have an AP of $10 weekly that goes to NORML. According to this Bill, if I didn't disclose my identity to the authorities, my donations would have to be handed over to the government. Lucky for me I don't give a flying mallard whether people know I give money to an organisation that seeks to legalise the prohibited, thereby possibly incurring the wrath of arrest and detainment at any moment by warrantless search under the Misuse of Drugs Act. It's OK, I've desensitised.

The intent of this Bill is clear. Knee-capped by fundraising to pay off last election, Labour, NZ First and Untied Future will knee cap everyone else to even the score for the next one. Better yet, don't give your meagre disposable income to a pressure group, give it to a party. Pity the poor bastard who wants to support an idea not an ideology.

But what really pisses me off is the Greens' support for the Bill. The Green Party started out as a coalescence of pressure groups, fused together in the Alliance and spat out before it went supernova. This Bill will kill any chance of that happening again. In spite of the very essence of the spirit of MMP, to encourage and foster more than two voices in the House, the Greens would throw that all away to be popular with Labour.

The next chink is Mark Burton.