Electoral Finance Bill debate continues

Emmerson: "Power Junkie", NZ Herald Nov 27, 2007

The fascist Electoral Finance Bill gets debated again in Parliament at 2.00pm again today.

This is a huge week in our little democracy, the biggest since the constitutional change in our courts when the Privy Council was removed without public debate or notification and when a law was passed in 2006 making the stealing of $800,000.00 in public money by the Labour Party to buy the 2005 election, legal after the fact.

Let your MP and indeed Aunty Helen know what you think about this attack on our freedom.
Email them here

The bill is likely to be passed this week but if you show your opposition now, before you are forced to shut your gob next year, then, well, who knows.

You have got to be optimistic until the fat politician sings.


Below is what Helen Clark thinks of the Herald's stand against this bill. She blames the papers stance on the EFB as electioneering and its coverage misleading. The very things her minions in Wellington are doing and those Labour party members directed to write to papers and call talkback stations.

Her own minister, Annette King doesn't even understand the Bill! Mind you nobody can because it is so rushed. Its contradictory, badly written and lacks specifics.

Don't worry though, former dental nurse King, says we can interpret the Bill/Act, "with the law of commonsense".

5:00AM Tuesday December 11, 2007
By Claire Trevett , NZ Herald.

• Last-minute bid on bill set to fail
• Lincoln Tan: Freedoms in the balance

Prime Minister Helen Clark has given a biting appraisal of the media, saying it often lacked depth and taking a swipe at the Herald for its coverage of the Electoral Finance Bill.

Speaking to the Journalism Education Association conference in Wellington, the Prime Minister said fairness and balance were key responsibilities.

With clear reference to the Herald's campaign against the Electoral Finance Bill, she said "fairness and balance is in the eyes of the beholder".

"In my experience, after many years in politics it doesn't pay to be too thin-skinned about this. Actually, we put up with quite a lot, especially when a newspaper is in full campaign mode, like the Herald is at the moment, and it can run for weeks, if not months, with full-blooded attack, front-page headline, opinion editorials, editorials, attack stories, cartoons, you name it."

C Political Animal 2007