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26
August 2007
Defending
Free Speech
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Once
a government is committed to the principle of silencing the
voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is
down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it
becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a
country where everyone lives in fear
- President
Harry S Truman.
Every
New Zealander who cares about our democratic right to free
speech should be concerned about the Labour Party’s
dangerous new bill on election financing. As John Armstrong, a
senior political journalist at the Herald wrote: “Wake up
to what Labour is doing with its shabby, self-serving
Electoral Finance Bill. Or let it be on your conscience that
you stood back and watched your right to free speech being
flushed down the drain.” (To read the article “English
strategy a win-win” click
here >>>)
While the
Bill was ostensibly introduced to overhaul the law around
election funding, the key target is the New Zealand public.
Such draconian new restrictions are being proposed - extending
the regulated period to the whole of election year, widening
the definition of election advertising to cover any issue
being promoted by a politician or party, forcing almost anyone
who wants to advocate for change to register with the state
providing details of donors and spending - that the end result
will be the effective muzzling of public criticism of
government policy for the whole of election year. That means
that in New Zealand the freedom of speech will not exist for
one year out of three. (To read the Bill click
here >>>)
The Bill will force all third parties engaging in “election
advertising”, which will encompass issues like tax cuts,
child abuse, or tougher sentences - with which a party or
candidate is associated - to either make a statutory
declaration that their spending is under the $5,000 limit, or
if it is over, to register, appoint a financial agent and file
an election expense return showing that they kept within the
$60,000 threshold. They will also have to provide details of
all donors or risk confiscation of any anonymous donation of
over $500.
The proposed changes will not
address the hypocrisy whereby on the one hand the government
imposes draconian regulations to restrict public criticism of
government policy during election year, while on the other
hand leaving itself free to direct public sector bodies to
spend millions and millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money
advertising and promoting Labour Party policy.
Graeme
Hunt, journalist and author of a new book “Spies
and Revolutionaries” (a history of New Zealand subversion, which
he has generously donated as a prize in the NZCPR campaign
advertised on the sidebar) has blamed MMP for the Government's
Electoral Finance Bill: "MMP is responsible,
among other things, for the two most self-serving bills in
history to enter the House – one to validate the
Government’s deliberate election overspending at the last
election and the other to give it an unfair spending advantage
in future polls”.
Bernard Robertson, Editor of
the New Zealand Law Journal roundly criticised the Bill in his
latest editorial: “This Bill is fundamentally obnoxious
and should be scrapped. It will penalise private citizens who
have the temerity to interfere in politics, while doing
nothing to deal with the major electoral funding issue we
face: the misuse of taxpayer’s money on a huge scale to
ensure the re-election of the incumbent government”.
Labour
plans to gag third parties which engage in advocacy during
election year. Yet in a healthy democracy, community groups
advocating for change play a vital role in keeping issues of
concern in the forefront of the public eye, thereby forcing
politicians to engage and respond. News stories,
advertisements, letters, emails, leaflets, placards, videos,
CDs, websites, petitions, marches, protests, and other forms
of campaigning all form part of the rich tapestry of public
opinion which, in New Zealand, drives political change.
Bernard
Robertson, this week NZCPR guest commentator, in his article Regulating
Freedom of Speech explains that the way the law is
drafted, the ban could affect us all. According to the Bill:
‘Election
advertising’ includes anything that takes a position on a
proposition with which one or more candidates or parties are
associated. Think about this carefully. It means that if you
in your private or work capacity send letters to clients, or
to parishioners or to the parents of the children at your
school and mention that the remaining tariffs adversely affect
your business, or that some form of regulation imposes a
burden for no benefit, or encouraging people to think when
voting about the plight of the homeless, or the need for money
to spent on education, then you will be engaging in election
advertising. If you wish to deliver a leaflet or send out a
letter like that then you will have to register as a “third
party” unless you can prove that you spent less than $500
between 1 January 2008 and the election date. So in order to
exercise your right to free speech on political issues during
election year you will have to register and then expose
yourself to having to produce sets of accounts, having to have
them audited and being investigated. So if you want to
exercise a right supposedly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights
Act, you have to register with the state. (To read
Bernard’s article click here
>>>)
So
what does the Attorney-General Michael Cullen - who assesses
whether Bills introduced into Parliament have Bill of Rights
implications - have to say about a bill that bans free speech
in election year? Astonishingly, this is his conclusion:
"Some
of the freedom of expression issues, particularly those
related to the regulated period within which advertising
restrictions apply, are finely balanced. I have concluded that
the Bill is not inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act. In
reaching my conclusion I have taken into account that the
regulation of the electoral system ultimately depends upon
political judgements and is an area in which a wide margin of
appreciation is afforded to Parliament."
(To read the Judgement click
here >>>
In
other words, by using examples drawn from overseas, the
Attorney-General has delivered the right of New Zealanders to
freely engage in the political process in election year into
the hands of “Parliament”. That of course, is code for
Labour and its support parties.
The
Select Committee considering the Bill is the Justice and
Electoral Committee, which will have additional members
seconded so that all Parliamentary parties are represented.
During the first reading debate, the parties that supported
the Bill were Labour, the Greens, NZ First, United and the
Progressives, with National, the Maori Party and the two
Independents opposing the Bill. ACT did not vote. (To read the
Hansard of the first reading speeches, click
here >>>)
With
the Attorney-General handing the Electoral Finance Bill to
restrict the public’s right to free speech to a Select
Committee that is effectively controlled by the party that
proposed the restrictions in the first place, public pressure
is now the only way to stop this bill from becoming law. No
matter which side of the political fence a person’s
interests lie, all New Zealanders should unite to oppose this
Bill that gags free speech in election year. And, with public
submissions closing on September 7th, there is not
much time to lose.
I
am asking everyone who reads this newsletter to do three
things: firstly, make sure that all of their contacts are
aware of the threat to the freedom of speech posed by the
Electoral Finance Bill; secondly, help prevent the Bill from
being rushed through Parliament by sending in a submission and
asking to be heard; and thirdly, signing the New Zealand
Centre for Political Research electronic petition opposing the
bill so that when I make my submission to the Select Committee
I can say that I am speaking on behalf of the thousands of New
Zealanders who support the NZCPR petition. (For further
details on taking action, please click
here >>>)
In
his speech to the Press Club on Wednesday, National Party
Leader John Key reminded us that:
"Only
27 countries, encompassing only 13% of the world's population,
are full democracies, with universal suffrage, with free and
fair elections between competing parties, with freedom of
association, and with freedom of speech. New Zealand is one of
those countries and New Zealanders are part of that 13%
minority."
(To read the speech click
here >>>)
That
democratic freedom, that we all too often take for granted,
has been hard won. Our forefathers fought and died to protect
it. Right now a central tenet of our democracy – the freedom
of speech - is under attack. This time that attack is not
coming from foreign governments but from our own. Surely we
owe it to past generations – and future ones - to engage in
this fight for free speech with as much vigour as we can
muster.
Our
natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a
dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so
fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this
moment – – President
Ronald Reagan.
The
poll this week asks:
Do you believe there should be any restrictions on the
public’s right to free speech either before or during an
election campaign? Go
to Poll >>>
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