Hager Guest Column on NRT

Nicky Hager has had a go at blogging on No Right Turn. Not much difference to the usual fare if you ask me.

The great weakness of much journalism is a process-worker approach to assembling quotation-based stories. It often feels as if the journalist just holds a tape recorder up to the politician or other ‘newsmaker’ and says, “please give me your two sentences of spin on X subject now”. The sentences are then inserted virtually unchanged into formulaic news stories or news bulletins, giving the status of news to what is really more in the nature of a press release. News would mean asking real questions, such as “what about such and such?”, “when exactly did it happen?” and “what’s your basis for saying that?” National’s campaign against the Electoral Finance Bill has been aided greatly by this style of journalism.

Oh yes, only National has been aided by “this style of journalism”.

For instance, John Key told the National Press Club that the bill is “a dangerous bill. It is dangerous for all of us as individuals, it is dangerous for our democracy, and it is dangerous for New Zealand.” It is “an assault on what it means to be a New Zealander” and “an abuse of the trust we have in the government to protect the institutions that make us proud to call this country home.” Good strong quotable quotes. There have been many more like them.

But does he really think this? Isn’t that the first, crucial question to ask? Key and Bill English look more pleased with themselves than scared for the country when they talk about the Electoral Finance Bill. What’s going on?

John and Bill are smiling a lot these days, on a lot of issues. You sort of expect that from politicians that are at the head of a party that is polling high enough to govern on it’s own. It also helps that Labour are falling apart.

As has been well discussed by No Right Turn and others, the Electoral Finance Bill has some poorly drafted sections.

In the same way that the polar regions have “a bit” of ice.

In its effort to be broad in its definition of election advertising – so as not to leave loopholes for unregulated election spending

Take note folks – Hager is saying it plainly. All spending related to the election must be regulated.

– it became too broad. The wording of the sections covering election activities by ‘third parties’ (Exclusive Brethren-type campaigns) can, at a stretch, be seen as limiting legitimate political activity in an election year.

“at a stretch” – weasel words always come up about this far into these things, I wonder why that is?

But I think that no reasonable person can believe that the Labour Government was actually trying to close down democratic debate in New Zealand under the cover of an electoral finance bill.

Here, he tries the usually effective defence of “oh come on, it can’t possibly be as bad as all that”.

This was not the first move before the Army moved in to close down television stations and newspapers.

Let’s hope so. Sometimes I wonder.

It was a simply a drafting error and was inevitably going to be fixed once the officials and politicians realised they had got it wrong.

Oh yes, a drafting error. Now it all makes sense. Well, that’s all right then. Labour can withdraw the bill, and draft it properly.

Better yet, they could follow Jordan’s advice and get non-partisan support for changes before re-introducing it. Funny how Hager doesn’t see fit to consider that an error worth mentioning?

From a publicity-hungry opposition party point of view, there was a small and totally legitimate point to be scored. This was clumsy drafting. Didn’t the politicians read and understand those parts of the bill before introducing it to Parliament? Who was sleeping at the wheel that day?

Burton.

That is, it deserved some “do-your-job-properly” criticism from the opposition parties. It warranted some news stories on clumsy drafting, how the Government had got it wrong and hopefully some comment on how best to fix the bill.

Instead we have got the current prolonged and strident campaign from the National Party. But I don’t think for a second they really believe that democracy is in peril from this bill. It is laughable to argue that it is “an assault on what it means to be a New Zealander”. They have spotted real faults in the wording of the bill that other people pointed out as well. But beyond that the campaign is insincere game playing.

By going on and on about “drafting errors”, Hager here has distracted us from the real problem. That problem is that a conerstone of our constitution was stitched up by political interests behind closed doors – a tactic Hager has accused the National Party of on more than one occasion, only he didn’t have proof. In this case, the proof is in the form of a Bill presented to parliament.

He’s also ignored the reason why we need electoral reform: the Labour government broke the law in order to gain power and got away with it. National was hindered by the EB, and did not gain power in any case. So clearly the Labour transgressions are the ones we must be most concerned about, but Hager is clearly not.

Third, he pretends that this criticism is a phenomenon restricted to the National Party. Frankly, if he believes that he’s living under a rock. Here’s what the Law Society says in the very first statement of it’s submission:

The bill makes significant changes to the regulation of general election campaigns. The purpose of the bill is to provide more transparency and accountability in the democratic process, prevent the undue influence of wealth, and promote participation in parliamentary democracy. Unfortunately it detracts from, rather than enhances, that purpose.

I know my readers know of many other examples, so I will not trouble them with any others. The fact that the Law Society can find no redeeming features in this bill should be enough in any case.

What is going on? First and obviously, National has found an issue with which to batter the Government.

Yep.

This is about politics, not policy. By hyping the issue week after week, by making a mountain out of a molehill and dancing triumphantly on top of it, they look strong and the government looks weak.

Yes, and so do all the media outlets and normally reserved organisations that have told the government to throw the bill out.

Secondly, there is the benefit for National of having an issue to agitate about that has nothing to do with tricky things like health, education and privatisation – issues that might raise questions National prefers to play down.

Here, one has to start laughing due to the complete absurdity of this statement. Clearly Hager didn’t hear about National’s health policy launch the other day, it’s not like it wasn’t all over the news!

Thirdly, and most satisfyingly for National, it allows them to be taking the moral high ground in an area where they should be chastened and apologetic.

And Hager’s about to explain why up is down in the next few paragraphs.

Here we come to the point. By focussing attention on the deficiencies of the bill’s third-party wording, National has deflected attention away from the reasons why this bill was needed and promoted in the first place. This includes National’s secret collaboration with the Exclusive Brethren, who pumped nearly $1,500,000 into advertising to try to get National elected,

I thought it was $1,000,000, and that they didn’t even spend most of it. As we all know, it didn’t help the National party, who tried to push the EB’s away, without success. National did not gain government, Labour did.

and National’s subsequent untruthful denials over this collaboration.

While Brash didn’t handle the issue well, careful reading of what he said shows he told the truth – he didn’t know what the Brethren were doing and there is no evidence to the contrary.

This is what the bill’s third-party rules are about: stopping wealthy interests getting too much influence in a supposedly one-person one-vote election.

Frankly, I’d have thought the best way of doing that would be to stop anonymous trust donations – a move that had the full support of every party until Labour realised it would be the one to loose out.

The bill’s opponents don’t acknowledge it (and some may not understand), but what’s fundamentally at issue is the ‘right’ of very wealthy people and lobbies to use their financial power to gain disproportionate influence. The bill is designed to control only those who have many tens of thousands of dollars to spend promoting their preferred party or candidates.

Great! That’s all right then. I guess us normal people with little spare time will have plenty of time and money to navigate the labyrinth of regulations, while those with money will be able to hire people who will be stopped dead by the complexity.

Actually, it covers organisations that have $60,000 to spend. If you have 1,001 members and all put in a mere $60, you would be caught by the limit. That covers many organisations like Student Associations, Unions, Animal Rights activists, Churches (“legitimate” and “illegitimate”), bowling clubs, the list goes on.

This is fundamentally different to freedom of speech. It is more like the freedom to speak louder than or even drown out ordinary people.

Hager clearly has never lived in New Zealand – he doesn’t seem to know what happens when someone “speaks louder than ordinary people”!

It might also be worthy to note at this point that more of those “ordinary people” are members of National than Labour. It’s conveniently forgotten in these debates that National has both money and numbers.

Once the drafting errors affecting ordinary political activity are corrected, the remaining objections are not about human rights or democracy. To the contrary, they are about the opposite: about preserving the power of the very wealthy to gain an undue and undemocratic influence over the political process.

Actually, even if the undefined “drafting errors” are “fixed”, we still have to deal with the issues of a) why Labour is not looking at making it’s own crimes illegal b) why Labour wrote the law behind closed doors and c) why they are not making it illegal to channel donations through trusts.

By stridently fighting drafting errors that are going to be fixed anyway,

After the public have had their say on a bill that is effectively a diversion?

National has been able to look principled when actually it is acting out of self interest.

Given what Labour is not doing, we all know where the self interest lies.

Lost in the commotion is the fact that they are fighting worthwhile parts of the bill that are designed to reduce big money in elections,

More like designed to reduce all (non-government) money in elections.

money that is most likely to be supporting National.

Glad we established that one.

Please notice what is going on. They are deliberately blurring their opposition to the drafting errors together with opposition to the good and important parts of the bill.

Drafting errors, drafting errors. Come to think of it, I’ve read 100 submissions to the bill as of today and I can’t recall one person mentioning “drafting errors”.

Far from admitting past dishonesty and helping to stop this stuff in future, they are using their defence-of-democracy campaign to try to stop important democratic measures in the bill – measures they claim to support at the same time as calling for the whole bill to be torn up.

Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor.

National has got away with this cynical and highly successful campaign because of too much uncritical journalism. All that seems to matter is that they are ‘newsmakers’ providing juicy quotations. Never mind that it is artifice and cynicism. It works if enough of the media don’t ask challenging questions and pass on each successive set of contrived quotations uncritically to the public. That National has got away with this campaign to date is evidence of where some of the genuine problems of our democracy lie.

Actually, I’ve read much journalism on the bill, and it’s very critical. It’s critical of what you call “drafting errors”. Errors that would make it difficult for any but the most rich New Zealanders, who have millions of dollars to spend on lawyers fees, to make the most simple statements on issues that effect them.

Yet in spite of these “drafting errors” that the bill is universally acknowledged to have, the bill has not been withdrawn for a re-write. Not even a hint.

What’s more concerning is that National, even if we assume they did everything they are accused of, was not prosecuted. The bill does nothing do fix that. They also did not gain power, so the voters appear to have seen through these tactics.

Labour on the other hand, did gain power. They are accused of flouting the law deliberately, with malice aforethought. They made documented promises to the electoral commissioner, and later reneged on those. They stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the public purse, and used that money to gain power. They were not prosecuted, and they are still in power.

Then, they tighten the law in a way so clumsy that their opponents will be hog-tied if the “drafting errors” are not fixed. Not one of their own crimes are addressed by the bill.

But here you tell us that a well publicised screw-up of a failed smear campaign must never be repeated, but a well planned theft and lying campaign that succeeded in landing the Labour party in the government benches for a third term is not even worth mentioning!

So excuse us all if we are a little cynical of your ideas, Mr Hager. I’ll take Bill and John over Nicky and Helen any day of the week.

Update: It may be worth noting there that of the 100+ submissions I’ve read, only 5 fully support the bill. That looks even worse when you find that 1 of those is (or was) the Auckland Charirman for the PPTA, and two of the others are married.