Posts by Tim McKenzie
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You want to criticise the process for drawing up this bill? I'm there with bells on.
While I wasn't exactly wearing bells (or even chanting), this is a large proportion of the reason I was at the march in Wellington yesterday. I don't think I can put it better than I did in the introduction to my submission:
This bill is intended to create reasonable restrictions on electoral campaigning in order to “prevent . . . undue influence” on elections (page 1 of the explanatory note), among other things. Such restrictions amount to a restriction on freedom of expression—albeit an arguably justifiable one. When restricting such an important freedom (however justifiable the reason) it is vital to take great care not to create a broader restriction than necessary. In this case, the importance is even greater, given that the restrictions specifically relate to the freedom of political expression. Unfortunately, this bill
does not appear to have been drafted with the necessary care.I don't care whether excessive restrictions are put on freedom of expression deliberately or accidentally; I'll protest against them either way.
The select committee process seems to have replaced some excessive restrictions with some other ones. This perhaps achieved an overall improvement, but it was so bad to begin with, it would have been hard to make it worse. I have no faith that rushing the bill through parliament won't introduce even more absurdities.
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Thanks for that explanation, Graeme.
The best guess is that this is designed to stop political parties buying complimentary blog posts as a way of spending money outside the limit.
Something in me wants to more specifically target the various methods of astro-turfing, which doesn't always involve money.
Tim
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To fix this, you just delete the bit in parentheses at the end of the 'blog exemption. Simple.
Brilliant! That'll let us do podcasts, too, and emails that say "pass this on to all your friends", which could be considered to be dissemination "by means of the Internet or any other electronic medium" (section 4, definition of publish, paragraph (g)). What about text messages that say "pass this on to all your friends"? That's not such a biggie, probably, since it's much less common, but it would be nice to know that it's unequivocally safe.
And would it be safe, as I suggested earlier, to remove the "on a non-commercial basis" bit?
Tim
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Only if you are "commercial".
Sorry, yes, I probably should have said that (again). Maybe I should also have made it clear that I only meant blogs that say things like "think about child-care when you cast your vote", or something highly political like that, without providing news about child-care.
And I think that anyone arguing that a freehosted blog which earns next to nothing through AdSense is "commercial" will be laughed out of court
Actually, I think Steven Price himself raised the question of blogs with ads, when he spoke on RNZ about this bill at about the time of its first reading. Maybe it was later than that. Before the amendments, anyway. The thing is, though, that there was no amendment to the exception for non-commercial blogs. It wouldn't be that hard to remove the word non-commercial, would it? Surely most genuine campaign websites are non-commercial, anyway.
By the way, I'm not worried about this personally. I don't currently maintain a blog, and the only stagnant one I have doesn't have any ads, anyway.
Tim
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Again, your average dinky Blogger or Wordpress site with some irritating crap placed by AdSense is highly unlikely to be affected. It's only really a problem if you're blowing thousands a year on hosting.
Again: not true. How many times do I have to say it? Section 53(1) requires disclosure of your name and address even if you don't spend a cent on your blog.
What is the real ramification if some blogs got covered? Is it solely that they will have to put their address in there? Or is there annoying paperwork and accounting that has to happen?
Subsection (2) of section 53 explains ways in which you can be "entitled to promote an election advertisement". One of these ways is by being the financial agent of a (registered) third party. This is where the paperwork comes in. Another way is by spending no more than $1000 on issues specific to a particular electorate, and no more than $12000 in total. This is much better than what it replaced, which required you to make a declaration under the Oaths and Declarations Act to the effect that you would not spend more than $500 on an electorate or $5000 in total.
Tim
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But we shouldn't be depending on the whole-of-house committee to fix new and remaining problems over a few days in Parliament.
Agreed. On this topic, have a look at the new section 55B:
The following persons and bodies may not publish or cause or permit to be published any election advertisement:
(a) the chief executive (however described) of a department of State or a Crown entity:
(b) a department of State:
(c) a Crown entity:
(d) a State enterprise (within the meaning of section 2 of the State Owned Enterprises Act 1986) or a Crown owned company:
(e) any other instrument of the Crown.I'm not sure, but would this prevent TVNZ from broadcasting any of the parties' election advertisements? TV3 might not mind that, but I'm sure it wasn't intended.
The way this is going, I don't think I trust parliament to remove more errors than they're going to introduce. If they reduced the regulated period to a uniform 90 days, they wouldn't be in so much of a rush.
Tim
<><P.S. Graeme, I'm looking forward to reading your blog post on this.
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s53 (1) applies only to "election advertisements". And a personal blog is, by definition, not an election advertisement.
Section 5 gives the definition of "election advertisement". A blog with political opinions could very easily fall under the definition in subsection (1). Subsection (2) provides various exemptions, including paragraph (g), for non-commercial blogs. What if a blog has advertisements?
As for applying it to non-blogs, such disclosure has always been the case.
Not for protest marchers. And if the disclosure regulations were already sufficient, then why do we need this bill?
While you raise fears around political revenge as a result of disclosure, I don't recall any stories about it last election, or the election beforehand.
I'm curious. Why do you use a pseudonym? Why don't you think someone who has ads on their blog might also want to use a pseudonym?
Tim
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Don, how exactly do you think the Herald has the wrong end of the stick? Do you mean the bit about megaphones being covered, or do you mean the bit that suggests it's fine up to a certain spending limit?
The select committee's report made it very clear that megaphones were indeed intended to be covered. See this from page 8:
We recommend an amendment to ensure that it is clear that the meaning of ‘‘broadcast’’ in this bill is consistent with the Broadcasting Act 1989 (encompassing, for example, television and radio broadcasting). Other types of broadcasting, such as the use of loudspeakers and megaphones, would be captured by the new provision in paragraph (i).
The real red herring is Lynne Pillay's suggestion that you can do what you like with a megaphone, as long as you don't spend too much. I've already quoted section 53(1), which makes it quite plain that you need to give your name and address, regardless of whether you spend anything at all. I've reiterated this once already.
I feel like I should go read The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, now.
Tim
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Well, in my case, I'm firmly covered by 5 (2) (g)
That may be so, but I don't think every blogger can be so sure---not without legal advice, anyway.
Disclosure, spending limits etc only apply if you want to spend money, rather than merely being an active, informed, and opinionated citizen.
Not true. I've already quoted section 53(1), which makes it clear that you have to disclose your name and address even if you spend absolutely nothing. That also, I think, answers BenWilson's question:
EVEN IF blogs were covered under EFB and had to acknowledge themselves as campaign contributors, so what? Would anything actually be stopped as a result of it?
It would stop people who don't want their letterbox or house destroyed by local nutters who disagree with them.
Don't get me wrong; disclosure is important, but I don't think every blogger, podcaster, or protest marcher should have to disclose their address.Tim
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Well, Gareth, I can point you to a few people who were active in the anti-Tour movement who felt that it was part of a larger project to turf Piggy the Fascist and his Tory litter out.
If that's true, then it would have been caught under this bill:
**5 Meaning of election advertisement**
(1) In this Act, election advertisement —
(a) means any form of words or graphics, or both, that can reasonably be regarded as doing 1 or more of the following:
...
(ii) encouraging or persuading voters to vote, or not to vote, for a type of party or for a type of candidate that is described or indicated by reference to views, positions, or policies that are or are not held, taken, or pursued (whether or not the name of a party or the name of a candidate is stated);Furthermore, if it seemed to encourage people to vote Labour, then they would have needed Labour's written permission:
**55 Requirements for election advertisements that promote parties or candidates**
(1) A promoter must not publish, or cause or permit to be published, an election advertisement that encourages or persuades, or appears to encourage or persuade, voters to vote for a party unless the advertisement—
(a) is authorised in writing by the financial agent of the party; and
...Labour probably wouldn't give that permission, because that would invoke section 106, which ensures that:
(2) The election expense of the election advertisement forms part of the election expenses of the third party and also forms part of the election expenses of the party or, as the case requires, the candidate whose financial agent authorised the election advertisement.
(Throughout this post, all italics are mine.)
Tim
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