Media statement
For immediate release
Monday, 16 April 2007

Dunne clarifies election funding comments

United Future leader Peter Dunne says that media reports he is opposing parties outside Parliament receiving state funding misrepresent his position.

"I am wary of state funding being extended - period.

"I am even more concerned that under the current proposal the funding would go to party organisations, which are totally unaccountable to the public, and not to the parliamentary wings of those parties.

"In other words, the $1 million sum proposed for the Labour Party would go not to the Parliamentary Labour Party, which is at least accountable to the electorate, but to the Labour Party head office, which has no accountability to the electorate.

"What this would effectively do is have the taxpayer fund the extra-parliamentary activities of political parties, whether they have a parliamentary wing or not, and I think that is fundamentally wrong," Mr Dunne says.

He says that media reports that he opposes state funding to parties that do not have seats in Parliament completely misses the point he is making.

"It is not the role of the taxpayer to fund the extra-parliamentary activities of political parties," he says.

ENDS

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