Fronted up today

After less than a day's notice I fronted up to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee today to do a short submission on the Electoral Finance Bill. About half the committee were Labour MPs and many were list MPs. It's the first time I have seen an MP who as a cabinet minister had a part in approving the wording of this bill - only to see him on the select committee considering submissions. Yes David Benson Pope was twitching away as I spoke. He even asked a couple of questions, one of which had nothing much to do with my submission. Labour are hell-bent on getting this bill through and they dont care what shape it is in as long as it passes.

If you want to know what I submitted, heres an idea - It is an article on the Electoral Finance Bill that was published in this week's Salient.

Meanwhile over at No Right Turn Idiot Savant states there has been no real effort on the part of the media to grapple with the issues raised by the bill, or the problems it is intended to address. This is a tremendous disservice to the New Zealand public, and I think we deserve better.

Fron what I have seen, there has not been much effort on the part of the select committee to grapple with the problems raised by the bill either. Most of them appear to be more focused on getting oral submissions out of the way so they can write their report recommending the bill be passed with as few amendments as possible, and deal with the SOPs as they roll in.

What a farce!