Posts by Angus Robertson
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You forgot the quotes around "betters".
No god, no queen, no lord, no master.
Except for politicians who demand the privilege of silencing their critics.
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No, it just doesn't make them tougher than they currently are,
Double negatives are hard to interpret. Please clarify. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with the statement?
Again, no it doesn't. It limits them;
Limits them to $60,000 with which to counter spending in the $millions.
organisations spend a lot of money advocating their views, the argument is that those unable to come close in ad-buying power will just disengage from the political process.
Not coming close by a legally enforced factor of greater than 20:1 will be an effective ban, right?
My point is:
Those advocating regulation of third party speech can lay claim to pure motives and protecting democracy from the influence of big money,...
...**only** if/when they produce a bill that makes similar demands on politicians.
The EFB (& other recent reform) makes politicians a special privileged class, subject to less restriction on what they say, how they finance themselves and what they spend. This is inherently flawed and cannot be defended with pure motives.
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Graeme,
The debate is about the EFB.
The argument in favour of the regulation of third party electoral speech is basically two-fold:
1. If we impose spending limits and donation disclosure on political parties, then we shouldn't allow people to subvert those rules by spending as a third party.
That is a moot point when the EFB does not impose donation disclosure on political parties.
2. Free speech...disengagement
Conventional wisdom says politicians are lying sacks of you know what. Conventional wisdom is correct, because they have to appear to be infallible to be elected and nobody is infallible. Do we really want a political system where the only people legally able to broardcast their message are known liars?
The EFB bans any arguments countering those of known liars who will be accepting secret payments from rich individuals. This seems disturbing.
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Tussock,
You are probably right, still I do not think it's required that we ban groups of more than 3000 people forming political associations.
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I would be happier with that as an argument, if everyone involved in an election had the same amount of money to spend. I don't mind restrictions on how much money people can spend, because some people start out with not very much "free speech" when they open up their wallet.
This is New Zealand, not Zimbabwe, everybody here has $1000 discretionary spending. Make the limit $1000 per person and limit organisations to $1000 per member. Fair for everyone. If 5000 poor people get together they have a pool of $5 million, but the Labour Party wants to limit their voice to that of one rich man. And someone says this will prevent disengagement, how?
This bill enables secretive large donations to political parties, allowing the very rich can buy corrupt politicians and pocket them. No large public/audited organisation can do this without obtaining membership support, so this sort of corruption will be denied to groups of the poor. Of course this would never happen in NZ, because we have the only honest and trustworthy politicians on the planet... more disengagement.
Stifle public debate and allow secretive payments to politicians - the EFB.
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For all its flaws, this bill – and the debate surrounding it – is about the role of money in elections, not free speech.
Have you heard the history of the term "Public Address"? It refers to rallies held by American political speakers that would be pamphleteered and distributed widely (at some cost). In this manner interested people could learn of new ideas and trends and what is worthy of support.
This bill restricts the amount of money anyone (other than the government) can spend expressing an idea. This bill demands that any free speech is addressed to as few as people as possible. This is a restriction on the right to free speech.
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Remarkably, the Herald, insofar as its stance is explained in the editorial, does not endorse the objectives of the bill.
Remarkably, the Labour Party, insofar as its intent is explained in the Bill it wrote, does not endorse the objectives of the same frickin Bill. It sees no problem in very wealthy individuals being able to anonymously pursue their interests by funnelling millions of dollars through secret party trusts that are opaque to the public.
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Not unless you think they shouldn't ever aspire to having and pursuing their own ideas;
We can safely discount the possibility of John Minto wishing to see any ideas (other than his own) pursued.
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This is a form of making money (for the operators) that is essentially based on psychological deception. If these deceptions weren't built in to the way the machines operate, there would be little or no profit in them.
You mean the buzz of risk taking, the sparkle of the lights, the agony of the miss and perhaps even the thrill of winning. What you term psychological deceptions, are what a lot of people do call fun. So no kidding, take the fun out and it will be less profitable.
Best solution I reckon would be to make them more fun and less harmful. Mandate 90% of the take must be returned to the punters for any machine. Limit cost per spin to $1.00 maximum and no more than 3 spins a minute. And allow them to be everywhere they want to be.
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Given that destroying their friends, family, career and health are not enough to stop addicts, how is it possible that any punishment the state can impose will to the trick?
All prohibition does is make criminals of addicts and those who are not addicted, but derive fun from the activity. Prohibition is merely an easy sop to the something-must-be-done crowd, a boon to providers of alternatives and a joy to fun hating killjoys. It doesn't work
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BTW - I am going to need mood altering substances if Chris Knox is incorporated into any political advertising next year, that or ear plugs.