COG is pushing for pretty wholesale change to many aspects of our electoral system, but getting everything we want will mean nothing if those laws aren’t enforced or the penalties are derisory.
No matter how stringent the rules, if the police won’t prosecute clear breaches any efforts in bettering the system will have been wasted.
This is among the most important aspects of election reform – what good are rules if people are confident they can ignore them?
And our proposals start with the bodies responsible for administering our elections laws – there are (at least) four:
- The Electoral Commission (which registers parties and their logos, allocates the broadcasting funds and receives donation and expenditure returns from parties);
- The Chief Electoral Office (which conducts elections – printing voting papers, hiring poll clerks etc. – and receives donation and expenditure returns from candidates, and is a division of the Ministry of Justice);
- The Electoral Enrolment Office (which enrols voters, and is a division of New Zealand Post); and
- The Police (responsible for investigating and prosecuting breaches of electoral law).
[You could probably add the Representation Commission too (which redraws electorate boundaries following each census), though it doesn't have too much to do with election finance or spending.]
And four is way too many – the system seems designed to ensure that no one person or body is actually responsible for the enforcement of the law – and this can lead to problems. Problems like we saw following the last election. A police investigation that can charitably be described as incompetent saw fit to lay no charges against anyone for Labour’s massive overspending or National’s breach of its broadcasting allocation.
The evidence was clear – it doesn’t add anything now to speculate whom – but someone in the Labour Party (perhaps more than one) should have been convicted of a corrupt practice and probably have been sent to prison for their overspending, and someone in the National Party should have faced that $100,000 fine for their broadcasting cap breach.
There can be no doubt that laws were broken, and one very important way to ensure that if anything like this ever happens again that there’ll be hell to pay is to bring all of the election-running functions into one organisation – a truly independent Electoral Commission charged with running and enforcing all aspects of the electoral system – appointing a Chief Electoral Officer independent from the Ministry of Justice to run the election, and a prosecutor to lay charges .
The Police showed in 2005 that they cannot be trusted to enforce our electoral laws and protect our democracy from corruption – it’s time the law recognised that election law breaches like those perpetrated in 2005 are incredibly serious charges and should be dealt with by a body that recognises this.
A single independent body to run elections is a must.
Graeme Edgeler
The Coaltion for Open Government
April 16, 2007 at 9:51 pm |
F G RESPINGER
16 CHITTICK PLACE PHONE: 64 6 345 6575
F G RESPINGER
16 CHITTICK PLACE PHONE: 64 6 345 6575
WANGANUI frespinger@xtra.co.nz
NEW ZEALAND http://www.frankresse.info
10 02 2006
Acting Police Commissioner Steve Long
Office of the Commissioner
PO Box 3017
Wellington
Dear Acting Police Commissioner
Over expenditure by the New Zealand Labour Party in the General Election Campaign
The New Zealand Labour Party has allegedly overspent its election expense limit on pocket-sized red pledge cards and pamphlets. This is an offence under the Electoral Act and the Electoral Commission has referred the matter to you. However in my view there are much more serious implications.
The Government has always maintained that its pledge card was not an election expense, even although it was issued around a month before polling day at the taxpayer’s expense.
In my view this is where the Labour Government is hoist with its own petard. Helen Clark pre election has always been quick to distance the Labour Government from Labour Party policy. (Students interest free loans Hansard). Yet the Labour Government has allegedly used Parliamentary Services (Taxpayers money) to promote a Labour Party Pledge card. This is an organisation outside the government that have been provided with taxpayer’s funds to promote their own members back into Parliament
In my view this is misuse of Public Funds (Parliamentary Services) by the Labour Government on behalf of the Labour Party and constitutes an offence under the Crimes Act 1961.
Yours sincerely
F G Respinger
You say in your Article: “The police showed in 2005 that they couldn’t be trusted to enforce our electoral laws”. They cannot be trusted to enforce the Crimes Act 1961.
Despite assuring me that my complaint above was being actioned, Dr A R Jack, Chief Legal Adviser to the Office of the Commissioner some 9 months later, wrote me 1 November 2006 that my complaint was not investigated.
My complaint to the Police Complaints Authority was filed closed, on 27 February 2007 by The Hon Justice Goddard, withouy any reason, save that she had enquired of
Dr Jack and taken his advice and closed the file on my complaint. Dr Jack and Police Commissioner Howard Broad were two of the people Alleged to have perverted and prevented the course of justice. Corruption?
Yours sincerely
F G Respinger