they took away your freedom of speech.

The Electoral Finance Act does four major things:

1. It expands the regulated speech period for an election from 90 days to all of election year.
2. It dramatically expands the definition of what is an election advertisement so that it includes protest placards, e-mails, posts to Internet newsgroups and forums (only non-commercial blogs and news media sites are exempted).
3. It places limits on public advocacy for or against parties, candidates or types of parties or candidates which are a minute fraction of the limits the politicians themselves have.
4. It makes it easier for parliamentary parties to spend money on their re-election campaigns and not have it count as part of their overall spending limit.

Overall the Electoral Finance Act greatly advantages incumbent political parties and MPs. The general public face a much much more restrictive law which inhibits their ability to advocate for or against parties and MPs for a massive 30% of the electoral cycle, while the parliamentary parties and MPs are now able to more easily spend taxpayer money on their re-election campaigns, without it even counting as part of their legal spending limit.

 

David Farrar - Kiwiblog - Free Speech Coalition

 

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