Cleaning up local body election funding

The government has announced reforms to local electoral finance disclosure rules, which will bring them into alignment with the regime of the Electoral Act. Good. As we've seen this year with the furore over John Banks, the law is an ass which allows unscrupulous politicians to hide donations (and therefore influence) from voters. But the problems go beyond just anonyminity; we've also seen widespread abuses around trusts, which in Palmerston North have resulted in outright corrupt behaviour. Its long past time these loopholes were plugged, and I'm glad to see that National is acting to do it.