Page One Post

August 7 - August 13

Despite this week being a recess it was still packed with events that could have repercussions for many years. The election funding scandal has begun to dominate the political headlines now the Taito Phillip Field fiasco has died down without the oxygen of Parliament.

Election campaign funding

National grabbed the moral high ground on Thursday writing a cheque for $10,588.17, the amount identified in the Auditor-General's draft report as being illegally spent by seven individual National MPs contrary to the rules. All other parties are contesting the Auditor-General's findings and believe because they have always spent the money illegally, they should be allowed to continue.

Labour has engaged in a number of tactics, their first was to dispute the draft report and stick to their claims the rules were too unclear to come to any definitive finding. Secondly they floated the stupid idea of state funding for political parties, David Farrar points out this removes a necessary discipline on political parties, but probably also points to financial troubles within Labour resulting from the last election campaign. Finally, Michael Cullen promised to tidy up the situation by passing "validating", really "retrospective" legislation.

"I think it most likely that we will have to consider validation not just for the last few months of 2005 but going back, as I said, into the 1980s."Dr Cullen said decision to pay back the $10,000 was a "cheap move" by National leader Don Brash to grab the high ground.

Surely Labour can see the shit fight it will create in Parliament as it tries to pass a law saving their own butts.

McCully.co points out Winston Peters' position on this is very different to the one he took only a few months ago when challenging Tauranga MP Bob Clarkson in court over his campaign spending. Consistency has never been his strong point, nevermind, he's only our Foreign Minister.

So following on from the questions regarding immigration practices, especially David Cunliffe, National has another issue which can damage the government's credibility as a clean, honest government.

Taito Phillip Field

Unsurprisingly the Labour Department this week announced they would not conduct their own investigation into the activities of Thai painters and tilers in Mangere and Samoa. I would be more interested to hear what IRD are doing, their powers are far greater and their determination much stronger than other investigative arms of government.

Energy Regulations

Energy minister David Parker has threatened to enact government control over infrastructure planning if the Electricity Commission and TransPower cannot resolve their dispute over upgrades to the national grid. Ever since the publicly popular unbundling of Telecom's local loop, Labour's confidence to intervene has increased. Although, as shown by the Commerce Commission's report on Vector last week, the same week Labour issued a directive that infrastructure investment (ie. making profits) was more important than holding minimal prices, the government does not always get their way.

Buy Kiwi Made

If I was in the Greens I would be hugely upset at Labour's push to include not only Kiwi made products but also Chinese made/Kiwi designed products included in the campaign. Surely this defeats the whole purpose which was to ensure manufacturing remains in New Zealand, as stated by Sue Bradford only three weeks ago:

“Frankly I cannot agree to do this. I feel that this would defeat the whole purpose of the campaign. I would be letting Rod Donald down, I would be letting the Green Party down, I would be letting New Zealand manufacturers down….”

Hmmm, the old Rod Donald excuse, shame on the Greens.

Google News Survey

Helen Clark: 44
Don Brash: 30

technorati tags:Taito+Phillip+Field, Campaign+spending