Corruption

I’ve watched the debate over the election spending and I don’t think the debate has gone well. The constant reference of corruption has made this a septic issue which has poisoned the air – I don’t for one second believe that any of the political parties purposely broke the election spending laws and using the word corruption for something that was a technical breach has left an embittered right wing baying for nothing less than a public whipping of Helen Clark. EVERY political party misinterpreted the rules, except Jim Anderton (which is a frightening enough concept in itself). Even Richard Prebble had to pay back $150 because he had been found in breach of the Auditor-Generals strict interpretation of the rules EVEN THOUGH Richard didn’t run in this election, he only spoke at a meeting which had been advertised on a poster.

So the Auditor-General rules that the spending was outside the understanding of every political party save one, and those political parties have decided to pay the money back (except for Winston who seems to love legal fights). End of story, but because so many have swallowed the corruption line, they are demanding blood where there isn’t any to give and Labour’s move to change the law to clean this up legally for the next election has now been twisted (because they are corrupt you understand) into Labour trying to get out of paying the money the Auditor-General has said they overspent.

We are talking just over a million bucks, all of which will be paid back (except maybe Winston) – this hasn’t been the great crime of the century it has been painted out as and it isn’t even close to corruption. There are much more important issues we as a country should be debating rather than a funding technicality that has been blown into a ‘corruption scandal that stole and bribed the election’. Pa-lease