Pander to their Mates
Russell Norman accuses National of “pandering to their mates and donors” in the matters of RMA reform and the Auckland Supercity. Isn’t it strange that the left always accuse the right of “pandering to their mates”, and similar claims of nepotism and cronyism, while the left always follows their ideology with integrity or responds to the wishes of its voters.
Whatever happened to people simply following the dictates of their stated political ideals? Labour have just spent nine years in government essentially following their ideology and, if one wished to take an unkind view, pandering to their union mates. I am certain that the Greens, should they ever (God forbid!) get into power, will do precisely the same thing.
In fact the only concern should be with specific donations given to specific ministers. for example: donations from the racing industry given directly to the campaign for the minister of racing. This sort of thing is much more serious than the business roundtable donating to National or the EPMU donating to Labour. Supporting the party of your own ideology is your democratic right. Attempting to buy favour for a specific purpose is not.
The Editor of the Herald today rightly says that the issue is not one of the amount of funding, but one of disclosure and suggests that there should be no spending limits, but that all donations over $1000 should be declared well before the election. I like it. About six weeks out from the election, all donations should cease (until after the election) and be fully declared immediately (with heavy fines if delayed). And that includes the estimated value of help from grass-roots organisation and unions (although not from individuals, of course). That way the public immediately knows where the vested interests are and everything is completely transparent.
Well, at least we could all pander to our mates, transparently.
Related posts:
- Spam Journalism #22 Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add...
- Money Can’t Buy Me Love I see Len Brown wants to limit the spend on...
- The Great Disconnection Yesterday, I blogged about how I thought left-wing remarks about...
- (Un)doing the Damage Any political party in power will tend to replace people...
- Predictable Poll The TV One News poll last night was entirely predicable....
Jun 1 09 3:28 pm
I’ve also blogged about this MacDoc. Apart from the fact that Norman has no mates to pander to, he’s a flippin’ hypocrite as well for his comments about crooks in cars
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/06/green-eyed-monster.html
Inventory2’s last blog post..The Monday Quote – 1/6/2009
Jun 1 09 9:04 pm
I’d actually prefer that all donations get declared, after all, donating up to $1000 is evidence of insanity.. isn’t it?
Likewise, up to $1000 worth of voluntary time could be three days.. that’s a major contribution.
JC
Jun 2 09 6:04 pm
JC, you’ve obviously never had to do an electoral finance return before. It was bad enough with last years rules.
Trust me, declaring every single donation would be an absolute nightmare especially for minor parties where all this work is done by volunteers, and probably impossible for major parties with innumerable donations to account for. And it wouldn’t really achieve anything useful for all that effort.
Mr Dennis’s last blog post..Maori seats against the Treaty of Waitangi