Opposing the Electoral Finance Bill

Yay, I just made my first submission on a Bill before the house. Down with the Electoral Finance Bill! You’ve got until the end of the day.

I wish to state my opposition to the Electoral Finance Bill.

I accept that elections have special considerations when it comes to freedom of speech and that there are good reasons for imposing additional controls to ensure the fairness and transparency of the democratic process. However, the opposed bill goes far beyond this and unreasonably limits the legitimate political activities that political parties, issue groups and individuals are entitled to engage in.

The election period is one of the times when New Zealanders pay more attention to national politics and therefore it is important that all views can be put forward and robustly debated. The bill imposes far too many limits on political speech and will damage the quality of our national political debate. It is also an abhorrent affront to the peoples right to free speech.

The bill is majorly flawed and cannot be saved by just a minor patchup; it should be scrapped.