Over on Frogblog, Green party co-leader Dr Russel Norman highlights some of the details of Canada's election funding regime. At the beginning of this year they brought in new laws which barred donations by foreigners and corporations, set a C$1,100 / year donation cap, and extended the deadline for prosecuting violations to ten years. Strangely, the Canadian party system has not yet collapsed under the administrative load, nor have the parties gone bankrupt (arguments made by the National party against similar moves here).
This is what we should be doing here. Unfortunately, form the leaks, Labour's policies may not live up to Helen Clark's rhetoric.
I think that there should be no restrictions on political donations as it is merely a form of freedom of expression. And if we want to be a free country then we must have freedom to donate as much as we like to whom we like. Party spending limits are disgusting limiters of freedom of speech. Everyone is entitled to express their opinion in the form of campaign donations and to limit it would be like censoring blogs or censoring news articles - completely and utterly immmoral.
ReplyDeleteThe Canadian experience seems to be driven by some partisanship though - the former governing Liberal Party is the big loser out of the new laws, whereas ironically the Canadian Conservatives are pushing for change.
ReplyDeleteWriteups, when it comes to elections, what people dont say, and what they refuse to answer can be just as important as what they do say.
ReplyDeletewriteups - I assume you have heaps and heaps of money so you will be able to get your view across without any prob whatsoever. Good for you! Pity about the other poor sod though who is not as well healed as you. Mind you, its his fault for being poor and his views don't count for much anyway - its obvious they can't count for much - he isn't rich! Nor does he have any wealthy friends overseas either who have an interest in getting you and what you represent elected because they stand to make lots of money out of it.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm seems to me writeups there seems to be a common theme going on behind all this - maybe its ALL about money! Oh well as they say - "you have to spend money to make money!" and you seem prepared to do that. But you miss the point - the point is about EQUAL opportunity. Private funding by wealthy backers with vested interests CLEARLY removes that.
Macro
IMHO all political donors should be clearly identified (no sneaking it in under obscure companies or pseudonyms) or should be totally anonymous. As in donations go into a common pool, before being passed to the appropriate party. That way, no-one is quite sure who donated what or who claimed to have donated what. Bit tricky to organise a back-hander if the recipient can't prove you donated anything.
ReplyDeleteHeaven forbid that we get as bad as the USofA, the best democracy money can buy.