Small parties most vocal about bill

alt tv/fleet fm breakfast news comment
Small parties most vocal about bill
The small parties took centre-stage in Parliament yesterday after months of words from the major parties as the Electoral Finance Bill passed into law after more acrimonious debate. The debate featured a surprise u-turn in support from United Future's Peter Dunne, who said opposition to the bill was at the point where "the average citizen" felt affronted by the law and it was now pointless to try to persuade them otherwise. While Labour continued with its attacks on National and the Exclusive Brethren campaign of 2005, and National accused Labour of acting in "blatant self-interest", the hardest-hitting speech was from Hone Harawira of the Maori Party, whose opposition has gone almost unnoticed in the debates so far. Mr Harawira criticised Labour of arrogance for continuing with the law despite opposition to it, and said it was not attacked only by rich right-wingers - it was also opposed by the Maori Party "with not a bean to our name". Mr Harawira described the law as "fleabitten" and motivated by "the sweet scent of power ... and the refusal to accept the reality of impending defeat. "We will not be party to a bill designed to put fear into those who would speak their mind, by forcing them to run the gauntlet of registration, audit, notification, financial agents, monitoring, reporting, scrutiny and penalty." He said the Maori Party were "horrified" by secret trusts and the amounts spent on campaigns by the major parties in elections, "but I can't help but smell the filthy stench of hypocrisy from the Labour Party in this attack on the Brethren".

Hone is the 2007 Politician of the year for the Sunday Newspaper Brunch Club and he once again proves why, his ability to strip down the debate and speak unvarnished truth makes him a rare voice of reasoned passion. Yes there are concerns with money buying elections and yes we need restrictions from paid speech, but the self interest that fuels this legislation doesn’t make it the righteous and pious law Labour are pretending it is.