Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Anne Tolley complained the select committee process was undemocratic as the minority opposing the bill were continually outvoted.
I/S - you well know what she was saying. Democracy isn't just about majority rule, but also the protection of the rights of the minority. In a select committee that includes being consulted, and having your say (even if, ultimately, the other side is successful)
One particular complaint she laid was that National didn't have a say over the formulation of the Anonymous donations regime. The Greens, with Labour, UF, and NZF got together agreed its formulation then came to select committee, read it out as a fait accompli, and got it drafted by officials.
Another was that the major policy discussions occurred for several hours on Mondays - not the usual meeting time of the committee, making it hard for members of smaller parties Act and the Maaori Party to always have someone present.
These were the concerns about the select committee being undemocratic, and I'm surprised you don't agree with Ms Tolley that democracy must include protections for minorities to be worthy of that name.
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Do you think that clause 3 (the stated purpose of the bill) could be used to limit prosecutions to those public 'advertisements' that involve a commercial transaction, such as hiring a megaphone van, or paying for an advert?
Not really.
The courts will do their best to read down and minimise the excesses of the legislation, and the police will rightly tell lots of people to naff off, but that's not something we should have to rely on. Also, the very fact that there is an exemption for non-commercial blogs (and that that Internet exemption is still very narrowly tailored to blogs, despite submissions asking for change) suggests that the Government knows exactly what it is doing.
People have said the bill covers megaphones, the select committee says the bill covers megaphones, and if that bit remains, it would be an adventurous court which stood in front of Parliament's pretty clear intention.
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Would it hurt to provide a number?
Kyle - it's new paragraph (i) of the definition of publish in clause 4 that extends the reach of the EFB to oral speech. That this is the intention is made clear on page 8 of the report under the select committee's discussion of their new definition of broadcast.
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Graeme: what do you think of Dean Knight's proposed amendment?
It pretty much works for me, but I'd also like them to get rid of the new paragraph (i) in the definition of publish, just to be sure.
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Kent - David lists me as one of the people who agrees with his interpretation. I can pretty much confirm this. There's are some minor differences over the interpretation. I suspect he thinks cl 5(1)(a)(ii) is somewhat broader than I do.
I don't believe advertising revenue necessarily implies that a 'blog is commercial (though it would have been nice to have that spelt out in the bill).
There are perhaps a couple of other (minor) things too. His analysis of the law around third parties since it came back is pretty much correct.
That's not to say I support all he claims. Things he says are bad (a 1 Jan start date for example) I'm not necessarily opposed to, but his recent postings on what the law requires on the third party stuff "the EFB forbids anonymous YouTube posts that call for people to vote for a party", "the EFB regulates press releases", "it now regulates loudhailers" etc. coincide with my view too.
I'm of the view, as I suspect DPF is, that there won't be mass arrests, and people who don't put their name and address on election-related placards won't be charged, but it's not because they won't have technically broken the law.
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would it be safe, as I suggested earlier, to remove the "on a non-commercial basis" bit
You could, but I don't think that's going to happen. I expect that advertising does not a commercial 'blog make, and that the Courts, if ever called on to look at the matter would agree (though it would be nice to be sure).
The best guess is that this is designed to stop political parties buying complimentary blog posts as a way of spending money outside the limit. A 'blog post from someone with the circulation of Russell being complimentary of a new XYZ Party policy is probably worth at least as much as a half page ad in the Herald, and I suspect the Government thinks that just because someone paid for a blog post (as distinct perhaps from an advertisement on a website) doesn't mean that should be excluded from XYZ's party spending limit.
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So what is written in news media publications and personal blogs is specifically ruled out as an advertisement. And if you're not publishing an advertisement, you don't need to supply name and address.
I think this clearly applies to comments as well, but Graeme begs to differ.
I don't believe I differed. I am entirely confident that comments on a 'blog are exempt from the requirement for a name and residential address.
It's Internet communications other than 'blogs - YouTube and the like - which will preclude anonymity. To fix this, you just delete the bit in parentheses at the end of the 'blog exemption. Simple.
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Don - I go through the explanation at this comment. Banned is only a little too dramatic. Most candidates will merely require advance written approval of their answer...
Of course, in looking at how outraged we should be over this, let's remember too that no-one will face charges over this even if it stays written this way - the police will rightly tell people people to stop wasting their time. It's still better if it's fixed of course.
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Is this still a "great improvement"?
Yes. The original bill had most of the same problems, with a lower third party spending cap, and an application to all political speech rather than just electoral speech. It ain't perfect. There had better be some of those minor changes, but it's all but irrefutable that it's better than before.
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Don - sorry I missed it:
how does it rule out these meetings?
It takes a little working through, but It helps to consider the following scenario:
You're a candidate for an electorate seat. You have appointed an friend with some book-keeping experience to be your financial agent (responsible for your donations, spending and election advertising - the one who carries the can if you spend too much). You will be spending more than $1000 on election advertising in seeking people's votes.
Election Advertisement is defined as "any form of words or graphics ... that ... [encourages] a voter to vote ... for [a] candidate...". This is obviously pretty broad, and would include oral speech (none of the exceptions to this definition apply).
However, just because something is an election advertisement doesn't mean the EFB regulates it - all the regulation in it only kicks in when the advertising is published. If you print a whole bunch of leaflets and then never give them to anyone, it doesn't apply, the cost doesn't count toward your spending limit etc.
Publish is defined as a bunch of different things - printing in a periodical distributed in New Zealand; issuing, handing out or displaying; sending or delivering to a member of the public, disseminating by means of the Internet, etc. It's pretty broad, but one thing that it didn't include was actual oral speech. The select committee added a new thing that it defined as publishing:
...(i) bring[ing] to the notice of the public in any other manner
This is incredibly broad. You can bring something to the notice of the public by shouting, or answering questions in front of an audience of the public at a candidates evening. That it is meant to catch quite a lot of things is made clear in the commentary:
... the use of loudspeakers and megaphones would be captured by the new provision...
Still, we haven't quite got to a ban. An answer to the question "why should we vote for you to be our local MP?" is an election advertisement, and constitutes publishing, but that only implies regulation (i.e. a requirement under clause 53 to include you name and residential address). How do we get to an effective ban?
Clause 53 also prohibits anyone from promoting an election advertisement unless they are one of the following:
* the financial agent of a party
* the financial agent of candidate
* the financial agent of a regsitered third party
* someone spending less than $12,000 nationally, or $1,000 in an electorateClause 55 also requires that anyone publishing an election advertisement that encourages someone to vote for a candidate requires the written authorisation of that candidate's financial agent. With the extension of regulation to public speech, any answer given by a candidate at a public meeting would technically require the prior written approval of their financial agent (which in this case, you'll note, was someone other than the candidate themselves - which will be the case for most candidates for major parties).