The government has finally kicked off its full review of electoral law signalled with the passage of the Electoral Finance Act, appointing an expert panel and setting terms of reference for its inquiry. The expert panel (composed of some of the country's top political scientists) will look at technical issues around electoral administration - e.g. whether we should keep relying on the police to prosecute electoral law violations, or shift that function to the Electoral Commission - and prepare an options paper on political party funding. Consideration of the latter will be in the hands of a "citizens' forum", composed of one representative from each electorate, "broadly representative" of the adult population. So, at the end of the day, the people rather than the politicians will get to decide on the fairest system of funding. Which is only reasonable, given that we are the ultimate owners of our democracy.
Naturally, National hates the idea. Colour me unsurprised. I guess they're seriously afraid of what "grubby" ordinary people might think about the issue...
(As for National's Crosby-Textor playbook attacks on the process, their quoting of the Cabinet Manual is rather selective (notably missing out the bit at the beginning which clearly states "In the period immediately before a general election, the government is not bound by the caretaker convention unless the election has resulted from the government losing the confidence of the House"), but more importantly, this just isn't a "significant" appointment. It's a review panel, not a top public sector job or ambassadorship...)
Assuming National doesn't get elected and can the whole idea, the Citizens' Forum will start meeting in March with the aim of reporting back at the end of October. And then the real shitfight will begin...
