State Funding of Political Parties
Having been caught up to their elbows in the till by the draft Auditor-General’s report, what is Labour’s predictable response?
Caught illegally taking public money to pay for their electioneering, is their response to admit fault, pay back the stolen money and promise not to do it again? No; it’s to change the law to make their pilfering legal.
Links: 1) Story on Stuff (Labour push for public party funding). Labour push their hands further into your pocket, more like it.
2) Commentary on Kiwiblog (Legalised theft).
August 11th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
“Labour push their hands further into your pocket, more like it.” Classic.
August 16th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
The Labour Party recieves plenty of financial support from Unions either directly or through the CTU paying for pro-Labour anti-National advertising. They place this inside workplaces under laws allowing unions to communicate with members. The Labour Party has written laws to encourage union membership which in turn increases their funding and the funds available for the CTU to spend on political advertising.
Furthermore, the Labour party has had 7 years to abolish anonymous donations or set up state funding for political parties but hasn’t felt the need to do so until it has been implicated for stealing hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars for its own benefit.
It had plenty of time to consider an aerplane for the Prime Minister but didn’t feel the need to do so until Helen hung some cops out to dry over the motorcade issue. This government didn’t feel the need to follow up on the speculation either after the issue fell of the front pages.
Then there’s Ross Robertson’s code of ethics for MPs that they didn’t care for until one of their Ministers got caught out for corrupt practices, making conflicting statements to the QC running the inquiry and possibly handing in false documents to the same QC. I’m willing to bet that Ross Robertson’s proposals will be ignored all over again if the Field saga drops out of the media.
Dr Brash was right to call this government the most corrupt NZ government in 100 years.
September 9th, 2006 at 11:24 am
[…] Young suggests that the only way to calm the waters will be to get out the chequebook. I, along with others, have said that paying it back isn’t enough. Labour knowingly stole public money to fund their election campaign, breaking the fundamental rules that separate liberal democracy from dictatorship, they refuse to admit fault even with overwhelming evidence against them, they have obfuscated and shamelessly tried to get their arms further into the till, they regard “honesty” as a political slogan with no real meaning, and they have issued threats against media outlets and opposition members who point out their misdeeds. […]