Darnton vs Clark

Further to yesterday’s story on Transparency International’s warning to Labour, there’s a piece in today’s Dominion Post (Keep NZ Clean, p. B5, not online) by Transparency International New Zealand’s chairman Michael Morris.

He says,

It is a fundamental tenet of New Zealand’s legal system that ignorance of the law is no defence, nor is the possible guilt of others a defence, so it is disturbing to see the lack of a consensus (among our politicians at least) over the illegal spending of public money for partisan political gain.

and later,

To compound [the advantage of incumbency] by using money intended for legitimate parliamentary purposes to help get votes, and then to avoid the issue of culpability, brings the law, the people who make the law, and the system that generates the law into public contempt.

Vituperative finger-pointing, seeking legitimacy in past practice or the recent practice of others, or hurried repayment of money already illegally spent - none of these is a legitimate defence to breaches of the law, and nor should they be.

Morris concludes,

The absence of those priceless values brings misery to many parts of the world. The illegal spending of public money will tend to erode those values here, and the conduct of the very people who make the laws will pose a threat to the respect which allows our laws to work.

So, unless we want to find ourselves living in Tajikistan or Chad, we need to stamp this out right now because tomorrow might be too late.

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