BREAKING NEWS: PM's govt.-paid flier not election advert: Electoral Commission

Ravi Musuku, the National candidate - National's one-man Mt Albert electorate suicide squad - has sent his very first piece of propaganda through the mail box today. Here it is on the coffee table. Very Nationallite. Very bland, very safe - exuding a type of banky/insurancey, air conditioned security. Safe.

Added to Helen Clark's flier, that makes this only the second item of political literature in the letterbox since the election was announced. We are only thirty days from the election. They are leaving their wooing a little late aren't they?

Helen Clark's flier was - as I pointed out the other day - paid for by Parliamentary Services. This is the time-honoured ploy by many parties: use all the Parliamentary Services budget up on campaigning during the electioneering period. It is a corrupt type of action -institutionally corrupt - let's be clear, and all parties do it to one extent or another.

I complained to officialdom about this because it was so obviously unfair and weighted heavily in favour of the incumbent MP and against the challenger - who is constrained by spending limits that the incumbent can circumvent via their Parliamentary Services electorate budgets (in the case of Helen Clark).

Pictures of flier here - from Monday's post. [or scroll down to it may be easier]

The flier mentions the Labour Party website, the survey asks whether you have visited the Labour Party website, the survey asks about all of Labour's election policies and it has just been delivered into my letterbox a month before the election. This is obviously party political electioneering. We have heard nothing from Helen Clark MP for Mt Albert for six months - and now we hear from her pushing her party website and her party's election policies a month out from the election. Surely, this incident is the sort of rort and manipulation that the Electoral Finance Act should have put a stop to. Surely?

Well, I got the following response from officialdom:

(Click on image to enlarge)

The survey does not appear to encourage or persuade voters to vote, or not to vote, in any particular manner. As a result, there does not appear to be any contravention of therequirements of the Electoral Finance Act in relation to party advertising.

So the fact that it was formulated and devised by the Labour Party with the sole intent that it encourages people to vote for the Labour Party is not a relevant factor here? If the flier did not encourage people to vote for the Labour Party they would never have issued it. It is pure propaganda. It is the same sort of propaganda that Mr Musuku just sent us - materially it is just the same:
1. I am xxx from xxx party
2. I care about xxx issues
He doesn't even ask us for our vote, he just says what "I believe in". Mr Musuku's beaming portrait is not intensively photoshopped - that's about where the differences end.

But Helen Clark's flier miraculously does not fit the EFA definition of an election advertisement. So whatever definition the Electoral Commission uses it does not include party branded literature with party logos on both sides of it with the party's website on it that features a run-down of the party's policies and asks a question designed to draw your attention to the party website and that is delivered to your home only a month before the election. Funny, eh - cause I thought that was precisely the definition of an election advertisement. The "vote-for-me" bit is implicit, as it often is in effective advertising - as I said Ravi Musuku does not explicitly ask for a vote, either personal or party.

Solution:

They must put a blanket ban on using parliamentary service spending in the election period. Arguably the same could be said of government itself - bringing in the caretaker provisions before the election to ensure they do not misuse their power. So what is the election period? The EFA says it began on January 1 - which is just one of the absurdities of that law. Some would say that from the announcement of the election date would be the period. Maybe it should be 30 days previous? In that case she would have just snuck in. Something needs to be sorted out because it is quite unfair.

"Have you ever used the Labour website? Yes/No"

FFS, come on.