The Electoral Commission has released the details of numerous decisions made under the Electoral Finance Act (links here). The interesting points
- Whether an issue ad is an election advertisement seems to be time sensitive. A PPTA billboard asking "How dense do you want them?" was ruled not to be an election advertisement at present [PDF], with the implication that it might become one if it was successful in making education policy an election issue.
- A party logo is not by itself an election advertisement. Two decisions, on a Labour Party spare wheel cover [PDF] and a National Party van [PDF] went in different directions based primarily on whether the party's election slogan was present along with the logo.
- Similar standards apply to newspaper issues ads, with an NZ First ad asking "what's in it for us?" about the NZ-China FTA being ruled not to be an election advertisement [PDF] "by a close but distinguishable margin". Meanwhile, a Progressive party ad saying they had "the strength to care" about BZP was ruled to be an election ad [PDF] because that was the party's election slogan, and has been referred to the police.
- Despite the National Party's efforts to throw a spanner in the works and break the law, material produced by Parliamentary Services is appropriately authorised by party officials [PDF].
- Finally, as expected, ordinary party members are not "involved in the administration" of parties, so the EPMU can be listed as a third party [PDF].
