Greens welcome involvement of the Human Rights Commission in Electoral Finance Bill

Green Media Release 25th October 2007

The Green Party is welcoming the involvement of the Human Rights Commission in helping to develop amendments to the Electoral Finance Bill.

“The Green Party has long been an advocate of electoral finance reform because we need to protect our democracy from the corrosive influence of big money. Fair elections are a contest of ideas, not a contest of who has the most money to spend campaigning,” says Green Co-Leader and Electoral Matters Spokesperson Dr. Russel Norman.

“But we are also acutely sensitive of the need to protect freedom of speech and democratic rights, particularly in the era of the Terrorism Suppression Act, and hence welcome the involvement of the Human Rights Commission. We are seeking to ensure that the Electoral Finance Bill finds the right balance between ensuring elections are fair and protecting democratic rights.

“We have carefully listened to the submissions to the select committee considering the Electoral Finance Bill, and for some weeks have been promoting numerous amendments, including:

-The removal of the need to provide a statutory declaration when a third party spends less than the threshold at which a third party must register;
-Changes to the definition of third party election activity so that a third party must be truly seeking to influence the election outcome, not just speaking out on an issue that might be associated with a party, before its activity is considered to be an election activity;

-Ensuring that groups with members aged under 18 are not excluded from advocating positions in the election;
-Examining the combination of spending caps and regulated period for third parties to ensure that the limit on expenditure is not too severe. And other amendments.

“We have also been advocating very strongly that we should effectively eliminate anonymous donations to political parties and abolish the secretive trusts that launder political party donations. The public has a right to know who is funding political parties.

“We are also pushing for amendments to the bill which would ensure that government advertising in election year does not advantage the incumbent government and effectively circumvent the limits on election advertising.

“The Greens will continue to seek constructive engagement with all parties to ensure that we improve the Electoral Finance Bill so that we have the best democracy possible, rather than the best democracy money can buy.”

ENDS

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