Helen Clark is now *against* corruption!

 

Helen Clark's eponymous foundation has come out against corruption in politics, which is a bit like coming out in favour of apple pie with cream.  

As I outline below, you'd think an organisation using Ms Clark's name might stay quiet on the subject of corruption. What her foundation's report calls corruption however included in one neat package deal the putrid practices of political lobbyists, and the act of people donating to their favourite political party.

These are two very different things.

One has the stench of cronyism. Of peddlers of political relationships forming a parasite class that Ayn Rand once called an "aristocracy of pull." The other is, well, for the most part it is just people donating to a political party because they like the party's policies and/or people.

Yes, cause and effect sometimes goes the other way. There are parties who do sell policies to donors. The ACT party's pathetic capitulations to Auckland council amalgamation and on abolishing the RMA has for years been predicated upon the many consultants who donate to and infest the party, and who never see a trough they don't like. The National Party's silence on China's many misdeeds may be connected to large donations from organisations like the Inner Mongolia Rider Horse group. The link between Winstons First's racing and fishing policies and his racing and fishing donors is oft ignored simply because major parties seek a sweetheart deal with him every three years,  but is tangible, not to mention the link between Labour's policies (education policies for example, favouring teachers unions) and trades union donations of time and money to Labour's campaign. And not to mention all the "green" projects subsidised with taxpayer money to help out the businesses and of Green donors.

But for the most part, donations are small beer. And are fairly transparent. It's the hole-and-corner parasites of political pull who are the biggest evil. And they're everywhere.

PJ O’Rourke used to delight in pointing out that this corruption, the buying and selling of political favour, is simply the price of Big Government — the sort of government that Clark herself has always favoured. Favours for cronies. Jobs for the boys (and girls). Big Government's power and money on sale to the highest bidders.

No one should be surprised. As O'Rourke used to remind us, when legislation proscribes what is bought and sold, the first things to be bought will be the legislators -- and the more legislation is written the higher the demand, and the higher the price.

The answer of course is a separation of state and economy, in the same way and for much the same reasons as the separation of church and state.

But that is not what Clark's foundation prescribes. 

It's not what Clark herself is after.

Helen Clark and her followers have long favoured direct payment of political parties by taxpayers. That's what this is about. Taxpayers forced to donate to parties whose views they may abhor. To political parties whose power would only become more entrenched by the regular involuntary AP from taxpayers' pockets. Clark favours this because her own Red Team suffers by comparison with donations to the Blue Team. (Not that money on its own can win elections, otherwise the ACT Party would have been in power for the last three decades.)

This was the impetus behind then-Prime Minister Clark's infamous user of illegal taxpayer money for her own election campaigns — "illegal" was the Auditor-General's word — passing retrospective legislation to legalise what commentator Chris Trotter called "acceptable corruption." ("Acceptable" because it was his own favoured political regime ransacking the public purse.) And for then-Prime Minister Clark's subsequent passing of the Electoral Finance Act to muzzle her opponents during election campaigns.

Corruption? If there's anyone in New Zealand politics who knows about corruption it's Helen Clark. When I read that Helen Clark's Foundation is "targeting corruption," I immediately searched here at NOT PC for "Helen Clark corruption." It's quite a trove. It runs for three pages. if you feel like diving in, start with the post near the top: ' Cancerous and corrosive and un-democratic and, and, and ...

Or of you want a fuller story, download this PDF copy of The Free Radical from 2006 explaining, as the cover story describes 'How Labour Stole the Election.'

In answer to the trolls – and a lesson in courtesy

A troll wants to know what happened to the money donated to the Darnton v Clark court case that was left over after Helen changed the law to extricate herself from it.  To find out the answer to this burning question, (well, “burning” to the troll anyway) I didn’t spam the question every ten minutes on every active thread here at NOT PC (which is what our troll did, one of the reasons my comments here are still under moderation).  Instead I just emailed Bernard Darnton, something anyone with a computer and a connection could have done. And he replied:

“The leftovers from the DvC donations were donated to the Free Speech Coalition’s anti-EFA campaign.”

So there’s your answer. If you really wanted it, all you had to do was ask politely (remember politeness?)

And it’s a shame the Free Speech Coalition’s money’s been all used up, because it’s looking like we’re going to need to get active again against National’s EFA-Lite.

EFA - gone

It started with the Labour Party changing the law to stop Bernard Darnton suing them over their 2005 pledge card, continued with their Electoral Finance Act by which they attempted to squelch free speech and hog-tie their opponents, and now after many months of shouting in the end it (eventually) took take less than a day to excise that incursion into Mugabeism from our law books.

And even Labour voted for its removal, and new Labour leader Phil Goff had the grace to concede it was a mistake.

Unfortunately, reports do not record what Helen Clark’s face looked like when she was required to file into the lobbies to vote against the mechanism by which she hoped to achieve a permanent Premiership.

Honourable mentions in the battle to exterminate this affront to democracy:

• Bernard Darnton *
• David Farrar, Cameron Slater and their Free Speech Coalition. *
• John Boscawen, who organised protests around the country that attracted thousands of affronted New Zealanders.
• The NZ Herald, who front footed the theme of Democracy Under Attack, and showed there is a backbone thereafter all.
• The National Party (yes, the National Party), who with the exception of one clause have kept their election promise to remove this travesty from the law books. Since this will probably be their only move in the direction of freedom this term (notice that it’s only a temporary restitution of previous law before the reinstitution of something else before the next election, let's take the opportunity to celebrate.

* That these two protest websites are now covered in cobwebs is proof enough of the measure of their success.

Moore constitution, fewer bananas

Once again former Prime Minister Mike Moore is successful in provoking Herald readers towards a better New Zealand, this time towards rejecting the monarchy and creating a constitutional republic.  New Zealand's implicit constitutional arrangements have been broken, he says -- broken by the Clark Government -- and it's essential to get the explicit chains of a written constitution around the bastards before it's too late.  We're living in a banana republic, writes Moore (echoing Darnton), but without even the benefit of bananas:

"I once opposed having a constitution because of our European traditions and enlightenment values, which we reject at our peril."  He's right there, but now he's now all for change because these age-old principles and values are being eroded before our eyes.  The electoral system has been changed to the Mickey Mouse Politics of MMP -- and we never got the promised referendum on MMP's future.  Rights to appeal to the Privy Council have been peremptorily removed.  Retrospective legislation was passed to give Clark and her cronies a Get Out of Jail card after stealing your money to steal the last election.  New laws have been passed to help them steal this one, abandoning the 'gentleman's agreement that such changes are only brought about by multi-party consensus.

"The present direction is visionless, dangerously ad hoc, short term and confusing," he says.  Accurately. "Democracy is about who runs the country. A constitution is about the limits of government."  So it is.  When a governments acts as it should, it's like a guard dog that protects your individual rights.  But when they're not properly chained up, we can be badly savaged and our rights abused -- more than we would have been without the dog, or the government.  The means of tying up a government is a proper written constitution that puts such chains on governments, confining them only to their proper role -- that is, to the protection of individual rights.

A proper written constitution is our check on our government. [See the Cue Card on this.]

The very best historical example of such a constitution is the US example, which helped to tie the bastards up for nearly a hundred-and-fifty years before they chewed off the  lead and got away again.  Written back in 1998, Libertarianz' Constitution for New Freeland is explicitly intended to fix the flaws that allowed the bastards to escape their chains.  I commend it to your attention.

TFR78: The Democracy Rationing edition (updated)

"Don’t Vote For Any MP, Any Party Or Any Candidate Who Supports The Electoral Finance Bill!"

Democracy is now rationed. Political speech is being muzzled. Has New Zealand really come to this? The latest Free Radical magazine hits the streets, just in time for Christmas, and just in time to dissect the greatest assault on New Zealand's democracy and free speech since .. well, for ever.

How did it come to this, that saying what's quoted above could have just become illegal? Bernard Darnton and Peter Cresswell explain why, how, and why it’s so wrong – why and how what our soldiers fought to defend is being taken away -- why thousands have taken to the streets to protest it, and where that leaves us now. And that's just the cover story of this bumper summer issue of 'The Free Radical.'

• NANNY's BIG BABIES: The Rise and Rise of an Infantilised Culture
  We now have virtually cradle to cradle nannying -- we’re never allowed out of our cribs, and there's nothing any of New Zealand's childlike, apathetic would-be whiners care to do about it. Marcus Bachler and Peter Osborne take the culture of infantilisation to task. How did we become such crybabies, they ask?
• FEEL-GOOD ENVIRONMENTALISM: Spinning the Climate
  How is it that the forces of global nonsense can fly to Bali in their thousands to force us to make any sacrifice hey consider necessary towards their goal of “saving the planet”? Talking about ways to force us to reduce carbon emissions, emitting 100,000 tonnes of the stuff themselves to fly there to talk about it – that’s how ‘seriously’ they take their own warnings. Vincent Gray, Callum McPetrie, Joel Schwartz, Steve Hayward and Ken Green explain how spinning the climate requires politics to pose as science, and emotions to replace thought.
• BANNING BZP: Prohibition Still Doesn't Work
  How is it that despite abundant evidence that prohibition doesn’t, can’t and hasn’t ever worked, the forces of darkness are doing it again: banning a peaceful party pill, and inviting the social destruction of prohibition all over again. Rodney Hide, Nandor Tanczos and Richard Goode point out the how, as Richard Goode says, the party pills ban but the 'P' into BZP.

All this plus the usual treats, including reviews, interviews, all your regular columnists, and a celebration of the 40th anniversary of your editor’s favourite TV show, all in this 78th Free Radical. 78 blows for freedom, and still going strong!

Head to the Free Radical store to subscribe or to buy your digital Free Radical. Or head to one of these top shops around the country to pick up your hard copy (they should be arriving in shops this afternoon).

Cheers,
Peter Cresswell
EDITOR, THE FREE RADICAL
**POLITICS, ECONOMICS & LIFE AS IF FREEDOM MATTERED**

NB: We're having a few teething problems getting the new digital issue for TFR78 succesfully uploaded at the Free Radical store. Keep checking back: I've been assured it will happen soon.

In the meantime, here's a link for an A3 poster of the cover you can download. Enjoy.

UPDATE: As astute readers might by now have realised, our webmaster appears to have taken an early holiday -- for which I can only offer prospective purchasers of the digital edition my profound apologies, and a recommendation that they purchase a hard copy edition from one of these top shops. And to say that volunteers for the job of Free Rad webmaster will be gratefully received in the New Year.

UPDATE 2: Mystery solved. Just heard that webmaster presently responsible for uploading digital Free Radicals was hospitalised after a car accident. News such as it is so far here. Naturally, our thoughts are with the young man as we wish him a speedy recovery ...

Darnton offers Libz political party as 'flag of convenience' for free speech

The first truck was driven through the Electoral Finance Act this morning, even before the Governor General had the chance to sign it into law.

Co-trustee of the Free Speech coalition and leader of the Libertarianz Party Bernard Darnton is offering his Party as a 'flag of convenience' for third parties wanting to spend more than the cap imposed upon them by the Electoral Finance Act.

As a registered political party, Libertarianz has a spending cap of $2.4 million dollars, twenty times what is allowed to third parties under Labour's draconian new free speech rationing rules, and Darnton sees a way to use that to promote the free speech this Government would like to muzzle. Darnton announced the new policy, explaining:

"Libertarianz is happy to authorize election advertisements for the third parties that Labour has tried to crack down on. We've never spent anything like $2 million dollars on an election campaign, so we've got plenty of room to spare.

"Free speech is far too important to let the Clark regime and its cronies flush it away. We will fight this law all the way to the election and we'd like to help groups that might otherwise be excluded from the election to do the same."

Darnton invited all third parties who wanted to include their spending under the Libertarianz cap to contact him to discuss the details:
BERNARD DARNTON
Phone: 021 324 466
Email: bernard.darnton@libertarianz.org.nz

UPDATE: The Free Speech Coalition has begun its billboard campaign in earnest this morning against the parties who voted the Electoral Finance Act into law.

"The Electoral Finance Act was correctly labeled by the New Zealand Herald as an "Attack on Democracy" so we think it is fitting that Democracy should attack back," said spokesman David Farrar.

Three billboards are initially going up. One in Auckland targeting Helen Clark (above), one in Tauranga for Winston Peters (below) and one in Wellington for Peter Dunne [or the Greens]. "They are a clear statement," says trustees David Farrar, Cameron Slater and Bernard Darnton, "that we regard their legislation as anti-democratic and unconstitutional. MPs are there to serve the public, not to silence the public...

"We hope the public enjoy the billboards over summer. We only have funding to keep them up for a month but will be asking people to donate to keep them up longer, or to allow us to roll out more billboards in more cities."

You can buy more billboards for the Coalition at their website.

Comrade Trottersky lays bare the real EFB issues

Chris Trotter, who is on the record of being all in favour of "acceptable corruption," makes his derision at "the owning class" abundantly clear in a diatribe this morning against a libertarian opponent of the Clark/Peters/Dunne/Fitzsimons Bill to Gag Free Speech & Buy Elections. You can read Comrade Trottersky's column here at Lindsay Mitchell's blog.

Stephen Franks summarises Trotter's position perfectly when he summarises Jeanette Fitzsimons speech to Wednesday's parliamentary protest: "Freedom of speech and political association and action is subordinate to the class war." Both Trotter and Fitzsimons are singing from the same songsheet -- and we all know who's writing their songs, or we should do.

Trotter and Fitzsimons understand just as clearly as Trotsky did the crucial importance of property rights. Where there is no private ownership, Trotsky recognised, individuals can be easily bent to the will of the state. The authors of the Electoral Finance Bill and the fellow travellers of Mr Trotter understand that point more clearly than "the owning class" themselves presently do -- and because they understand it more clearly, and because they despise "the owning class," they're prepared to use all the levers of state power at their command in the battle to control the "inherent power structures" at work in a society in which "the owning class" is allowed to flourish.

They're prepared to justify an "acceptable" level of corruption in our elections -- which includes putting severe restrictions on how much electioneering you can do with your own money, while putting their hand in your pocket to fund their own political campaigns. They're prepared to countenance the muzzling of your free speech while using your resources to trumpet their own. They're prepared to support retrospective legislation legalising eight-hundred thousand dollars of pledge card spending that Labour Party organisers knew at the time was illegal.

They're prepared to support and spin and lie about the real point of the Electoral Finance Bill, which is to use state power to silence as far as possible this "owning class."

Thank goodness then for the columns of old schools socialists like Trotter, whose spin being less opaque than that of his younger more postmodern successors the reader can see more clearly the real issues at stake here. In a sea of spin, his "extreme, unvarnished -- and refreshingly candid -- ideological assertions" are a welcome relief, since they can help us see the issue more clearly.

Make no mistake, it's the very idea of an "owning class" Trotter and Fitzsimons and their fellow travellers find repugnant, and in the name of the poor, the oppressed, the halt and the lame -- of speechless peoples and the "oppressed" everywhere -- they'll do whatever it takes to wipe that class out, or at least to puncture the "power structure" their post-structuralist pomowank tells them is there in society and at the service of this "class." And make no mistake, they're prepared to wrap themselves in all the state's power they need to do that.

That's not just the reason for their willingness to countenance and support this latest obscenity - it provides the explanation too for the many other outrages introduced under the Clark regime, including the nationalisation of children via the anti-smacking amendment, the welfarisation of the middle classes via Welfare for Working Families, and the innumerable other nannying assaults by which we're all kept down.

Do not make a mistake of thinking they don't mean to take your free speech away: they sure as hell do. And once your free speech is gone, all legitimate forms of protest at what they're doing will be gone too.

"Acceptable corruption"

Helen Clark has conceded that the Labour Party won't be using a Pledge Card at the next election -- a concession not to the Auditor General, who found that the Pledge Card was an illegal use of taxpayer's money, but an acceptance that the Auditor General's report and Bernard Darnton's case against Clark for illegal use of public money have between them soiled the Card irreparably.

It's also an easy concession to make, given that Helen Clark (in her role as leader of the Clark Government) is organising the full weight of taxpaid resources and state power to be brought to bear to re-elect Helen Clark (in her role as leader of the Labour Party), and to silence her opponents.

Who needs pledge cards when you've issued a policy requiring departmental bureaucrats to issue advertising extolling your programmes?

Who needs pledge cards when you're enacting legislation under urgency to "throw open the gates" to unlimited parliamentary spending on your behalf so that the taxpayer pays for your campaign, you don't have to, and it doesn't count as election advertising?

Who needs pledge cards when you're enacting further legislation without proper consultation that effectively shuts down your opponents for the entire year of an election campaign? That will shut down political speech for one-third of our lives?

Who needs to worry about being called corrupt when you can just change the law to make your corruption legal?

Between them the Electoral Finance Bill the continuation of the so called Temporary Appropriation Bill deals the Clark Government all the cards in seeking re-election -- and just to make sure it ensures all the cards are marked.

No wonder "Miss Clark indicated yesterday that Labour was unlikely to fund the pledge card through the parliamentary leaders fund, if at all." Who needs it when you've got what Chris Trotter calls (approvingly) "acceptable corruption" on your side.

Where an honest or principled person might be appalled at contemplating, let alone carrying out or defending such corruption, Clark and Trotter have no problem. Both have been thoroughly immersed in post-modernist neo-Marxist structuralism, a mouthful of bullshit that stands for whole reams of freedom-threatening bollocks.

According to the pomo-wanking structuralist, we are all part of a subliminal power struggle of all against all, a struggle between collectives characterised by the battle to control the "inherent power structures" at work in society. As an example of the application of this view, according to the pomo-wanker, no matter how outrageous the behaviour it's not possible for a "minority" racist to be a racist, no matter how overt. In the words of the pomowankers who now write Herald editorials for example,

Nor may Maori activists or their supporters sensibly be called racists. Racism has nothing to do with skin colour, and everything to do with power. Anyone who argues that those arrested in Tuhoe and elsewhere last month are more powerful than the state authority unleashed on them is deluded. Or trying to win votes by any means necessary.

As an intelligent commenter says at Kiwiblog, this is not a redefinition of racism:

This has been the standard definition of racism in NZ universities since at least the early 1980’s. It has been hammered relentlessly into almost three decades-worth of students by lecturers and activitists in the humanities and social sciences divisions.

It’s no surprise at all to me to see it emerging in the editorial page of the Herald in 2007 by those former students. That was exactly the intention of those professors all those years ago.

The commenter, Tom Hunter, explains how this pomo-wank allows the left to countenance corruption without a qualm:

while the notion has been cleverly broadened far beyond racism the real impact has come from its being welded to the thinking of the modern political left. After all, they represent all the powerless and oppressed of this world do they not?

It enables any Left-wing movement to justify almost action to gain the power of the state and hold on to it, for even after holding such power for years or even decades they can still claim that they are powerless, at the mercy of mysterious, hidden forces in society that can be countered in no other way.

For all his harking back to a golden time of traditional working-class Labour action it was actually this post-modern notion of enternal powerlessness that lay at the heart of Chris Trotter’s observation that Labour’s 2005 victory represented “acceptable corruption”.

Hate is Love. War is Peace. Pah, crude! Power is Powerlessness is infinitely more subtle and brilliant.

Such is the power of poor philosophy to blind and corrupt. As long as you position yourself to "speak for the speechless," then anything at all goes including violence, naked corruption and an unconcealed grab at permanent political power. In other words, all the cards you can grab are yours for the taking.

Who the hell needs pledge cards when you've made sure that all the powers of the state are already at your disposal for your re-election campaign?

EFB: Drown it.

I'm told Libz just got quite a long mention in Newstalk ZB's 9 O'Clock News about their Electoral Finance Bill submission with Colin Cross quoted saying the bill doesn't need watering down - it needs drowning.

The perfect one-liner.

UPDATE: David Farrar says, "I am hearing whispers from Parliament that Labour is 100% determined to get the Electoral Finance Bill passed into law."

It's becoming increasingly clear why they're so determined: at the next election the Labour Party intends to use the taxpayer as their personal cash machine, and the departments of state as their personal publicity departments -- meanwhile using the Electoral Finance Bill to ban criticism, and to muzzle anyone else doing very much electioneering at all. This, for instance:

Leaked draft documents reveal the extent to which Labour plans to campaign on the public purse. This campaign includes a script for call-takers at an 0800 phone line who will sing the praises of Labour's health policies.

It's hard to overstate how disgustingly cynical this is, more cynical even than introducing retrospective 'Get Out of Jail Free' legislation last year to head off Bernard Darnton's legal action over the pledge card outrage.

Even the normally state-worshipping Human Rights Commission told the Select Committee is against this outrageous assault on democracy,

the Bill will infringe certain human rights - most obviously freedom of expression but also the right of all citizens to participate in the election process. ...It is difficult to conceive of a greater limitation on freedom of speech than this.

You didn't think the HRC had the balls, did you.

Electoral Finance Bill

Submissions on the Electoral Finance Bill close at 5pm today. This is the Bill described in parliament yesterday as produced by "a fascist tyranny, and anti-democratic." The commenter was too kind.

In the Libertarianz submission on the Bill, Bernard Darnton -- whose suit against the Clark Government for misappropriating public funds to pay for their electoral advertising led to Clark and co. passing so called "validating" legislation to legalise the theft, and set in train the moves towards this Bill -- makes clear he "opposes this Bill in the strongest possible terms."

It is an unprecedented assault on free speech and violates the trust between citizens and the government that undergirds a peaceful and prosperous country.

Vendors in third-world markets often start by making an outrageous offer and then haggling their way down to the price they actually want – a price that would have seemed outrageous if it had been offered initially. Those selling third-world political ideas should not be allowed to get away with the same trick.

This Bill is beyond repair. It cannot be fixed. We urge committee members not to make the mistake of meeting its authors half-way and declaring a successful compromise. This Bill cannot be watered down; it must be drowned...

The stated intentions of this Bill include the maintenance of public confidence in the administration
of elections and the promotion of public participation by the public in parliamentary democracy. In
1946 George Orwell wrote, “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder
respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

We propose that, in the interests of honesty, the wording be changed to

3 (a) deflect attention from the public's lack of confidence in the administration of elections in the wake of the misappropriation of public funds to pay for electoral advertising and the subsequent validation of such misappropriation.
(b) deter public participation in parliamentary democracy and limit political expression to approved parties.

The hard-hitting Libertarianz submission can be found online here: Submission on the Electoral Finance Bill - Libertarianz.

UPDATE: David Farrar has info on how to make an online submission. Do it NOW!

Speech rationing with the EFB

If you haven't yet caught up with the outrage to free speech that is Labour's Electoral Finance Bill (on which Mr Farrar has written screeds of good, well-meaning material) and you're struggling to find a word to embody its evil, then the boys at Pacific Empire have a short video that quickly explains what's behind it, what's in it, and what the bill will do to free speech if passed.

The famous dancing cossacks (almost) make an all-too appropriate appearance. Sort of.

Clark and co must pay $194,000 'arrogance surcharge' says Darnton

The Labour Party has finally -- about time! -- repaid the $800,000 they stole from the taxpayer to help fund their election campaign, but Libertarianz leader Bernard Darnton says there's still something more to be paid: An "arrogance surcharge." He explains in yesterday's press release:

"Of course, with the pledge card spending retrospectively legalised last year, there was no legal debt to be paid. The payment must therefore be a gift."

Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons agrees. When the Greens handed $87,000 over to the Parliamentary Service in February she said the payment was "a gift, not a debt." [1]

Darnton added, "A gift of this magnitude must be subject to gift duty." Using Inland Revenue's gift duty guide (IR 194), Darnton calculated the gift duty Labour owes as just under $194,000.

"This is a mess of their own making. If they'd just admitted that they'd taken the money illegally and paid it back in the first place there would be no question of this extra charge but they refused to admit they did wrong and then went and changed the rules. This $194,000 is really an arrogance surcharge.

"I expect Labour to announce that they will take their tax obligations as seriously as they demand other, more productive, New Zealanders to."

Bravo Bernard! This is the sort of thing real opposition leaders should be doing. If you like what Libz leader Bernard Darnton is doing, then you really should consider becoming a Libertarianz member and helping him out. Far better than sitting still for this vapid drivel from John Boy.

Shane Jones, MP, on Labour's democracy rationing proposals

The Clark Government's proposals to take advantage of the outcry over their own corrupt election spending takes two forms: democracy rationing, which includes a ban or severe limits on private donations to political parties, requiring instead that the taxpayer fund political parties in a manner that favours the two big parties; and speech rationing, placing severe limits on political criticism in election year.

Note that the Clark Government democracy rationing proposals provide an exemption for unions. Newstalk ZB interviewer asked Labour MP Shane Jones why:

INTERVIEWER: "Why would you exempt unions?"

LABOUR MP SHANE JONES: "They're valuable and long term supporters of ours, etc..."

You can hear the interview here [hat tip DPF]. Question and admission comes 1:45 in. Links to banana republic electioneering welcomed in the comments section.

The Goverment is not above the law

Yes, Labour stole the election -- knowingly over-spending the legal limit by nearly half-a-million dollars, after being told by the electoral commission that their 'pledge cards,' the reason for the over-spend, would be included in their election spending.

They didn't care. They went ahead anyway, funding the pledge cards with your money. They bought the election with money they weren't allowed to spend. Not for the first time, they thought they were above the law.

They're not. And now, something is being done about it.

Libertarianz leader Bernard Darnton has filed suit in the High Court:

The lawsuit claims that the use of the parliamentary leader's fund to pay for the pledge card and brochure breached the Constitution Act 1986, the Public Finance Act 1989, and the Bill of Rights 1688. Darnton is calling for the High Court to make a declaration that this expenditure was illegal.

“Helen Clark is not above the law,” Darnton said. “This time she's not going to get away with it.”

“The rules on Crown spending are very clear. All Crown spending must be authorised by Parliament. Each year Parliament must pass an Appropriations Act that details how much the Crown may spend and what it may spend it on. The money spent on the pledge cards was appropriated for the running of the leader's office. This rules for this money explicitly exclude “party political, promotional or electioneering material”. It was not appropriated for election advertising and thus the spending was illegal.

“This government seems to have forgotten who's in charge. In a democracy, the people are in charge. The people elect a Parliament and then parliamentarians form a government. The government is the servant of the people, not their master. The appropriations rules are one of our basic constitutional protections. By ignoring the appropriations rules, this government has shown that it doesn't care about the will of Parliament or the will of the people and is quite happy to behave like a dictatorship.

“A declaration by the High Court that this spending was illegal will send a clear reminder to the Clark regime that they are not above the law and that they are still answerable to their master, the public.

“I'm absolutely committed to making sure that this government doesn't get away with breaking the law. A government that follows the rule of law is essential to a free and open society. Something is rotten in the state of New Zealand, and my pledge is to stop the rot.”

You can find out details of what Labour did and what's being done about it in the new and re-launched The Free Radical (pictured above), which is out early next week, bigger and better than ever before. Subscribe now, or order your copy from your newsagent to make sure you don't miss out.

And you can keep up to date with proceedings at the trial website: www.DarntonVsClark.org.

This promises to be very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

TAGS: Politics-NZ, Politics-Labour, Libz, Darnton V Clark