14 April 2007 - RUSSELL NORMAN, RODNEY HIDE

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AGENDA Presented by Lisa Owen - Episode 6, 2007

ELECTION FUNDING

LISA	Labour is planning a raft of changes to campaign funding rules in time for next year's election. The party wants a more transparent system that would out anonymous donors and rein in attack campaigns like the one launched by the Exclusive Brethren, and taxpayers could end up picking up the tab for election campaigning, but Labour needs the support of minor parties to introduce the bill in a fortnight. Here to debate the issue are Green Party Co-leader Russell Norman, Gordon Copeland from United Future and ACT's Rodney Hide and from Rotorua we hope to have Justice Minister Mark Burton. To begin with we'll go to Russell Norman. You, the small parties, have been in discussions with Labour, so talk us through it what's under consideration, are they considering lowering thresholds at which donors have to be named, is that one of the things on the table?

RUSSELL NORMAN - Co-Leader, Greens
	It is one of the things on the table, it's actually making sure the anonymous donors elements of the scheme work at all, because at the moment you can give money anonymously to parties and the parties might actually know where the money's coming from which is what came out in Ihaka's book was that National seemed to know who was giving the money even though it was declared anonymously, and that's a real problem, there's the potential for corruption.

LISA	So parties at the moment are at liberty to try and hide the origins of donations, you're talking about a clamp down on that?

RUSSELL`	That's right because the public should know who's funding political parties, I think the public need to have a right to know who is giving money to political parties.

LISA	Is there are plant to outlaw donations entirely that are channelled through these invisible trusts?

RUSSELL	That's right because basically the way it works at the moment is it's kind of like a laundering scheme almost you know the money goes to the trust, the trust give the money to the party and then the public doesn't know where the money's coming from and I think that's a real potential for corruption, because you know that donor may be influencing government policy but the public would never know.

LISA	Is state funding on the table?

RUSSELL	It is one of the things that's under discussion no question about it.

LISA	Is it as far as having an idea of how it would work, two dollars a vote say like the Australian scheme?

RUSSELL	There are proposals like that, I mean it's all been in the paper.

LISA	So Labour has a proposal like that?

RUSSELL	There are proposals like that going round. I mean I think the sooner that this gets out properly into the public, I mean it's ridiculous that we're having this kind of - through the papers, the more it gets out in the public the better and the sooner.

LISA	So is Labour pushing for a donation cap then on how much individuals can give? Is that one of the things that's being discussed?

RUSSELL	That's one of the things that I certainly think should be put on the table because - look at it I like this if there's a cap on how much the parties can spend and then we have this issue about you know clearing up the anonymous donations, one of the other things that I think we want to look at is should there be a cap on how much one company or one person can give the parties so that the parties have to go out and get donations from lots of different people rather than just going to one or two really wealthy people.

LISA	So there can be no allegations of the fact that you're reliant on one individual for a big whack of money so you offer favours in terms of policy?

RUSSELL	That's right we want the parties to have to go out into the community to raise money.

LISA	Banning foreign donations is that on the table - donations from foreigners?

RUSSELL	I think that's a really important thing that we need to change, I mean you can't go and you know get involved in the United States' election they've got rules about that, I think that's a very sensible change.

LISA	What about tighter campaign law enforcement, is there talk of giving more power to say the Electoral Commission who can take a prosecution off their own bat without relying on the Police?

RUSSELL	That has been discussed but at the moment I don't think that we're gonna end up going down that path, because we've got to actually sort out the problem of the three electoral bodies you know we've got the Electoral Commission, we've got the different bodies at the moment and it would be good to sort out that issue, and I don't know that there's time to sort that out before the next election.

LISA	Okay well we've got a benchmark there, Rodney Hide how much of that could you see your party supporting?

RODNEY HIDE - Leader ACT
	Well let's just go back a step, I think what's happening here is absolutely disgraceful, because the call is for more openness, more transparency and more accountability and that's actually what the ACT party stands for, but is that what we're seeing here, no it's not. What we're seeing is the Labour Party with its mates behind closed doors actually sitting down designing the rules for next election and for the elections after that about how political parties can behave but more especially about how New Zealanders can behave in an election campaign. Now if they're actually interested in openness and transparency this would be out in the public, there'd be a proper process. The last people that should be actually running this are politicians and certainly the last people running it should be the Labour Party in the government because do we think seriously that they're doing this with the best interests of New Zealand? No, they're actually jacking the rules to suit themselves and there's some very very important principles that are being overridden here. Here's one - freedom of speech. You know since 1995 you haven't been able to put ads on the TV or on the radio at your own expense, it's illegal to actually express a political opinion. This is going to further erode freedom of speech, now it might be as Russell says that that's the price that we pay for a more transparent and open system but that's something that New Zealanders should be involved in because actually New Zealanders fought and died for freedom of speech, for freedom of political expression and here's another thing.

LISA	No Rodney, let's put that to the Minister, who's standing by in Rotorua. Alright, Rodney Hide is suggesting that Labour has been working away on this behind closed doors and there's been no transparency, what's your response to that allegation?

MARK BURTON - Minister of Justice
	It's patently incorrect, I mean I exchanged correspondence with the parliamentary select committee who looked into the last election in May of last year, I sat in front of that committee in June of last year and outlined to them the range of work that I was engaging on, indeed they urged me to do so. It's a perfectly straightforward process to do preparatory work then to consult with support parties and then to bring a package to the parliament that it can in turn consider fully and then go to a select committee where all New Zealanders have an opportunity to look at that work, that's what we're doing.

LISA	Alright, how wedded to the prospect of state funding is Labour?

MARK	Well I think state funding is but one ingredient that's up for consideration, if it goes it goes, if it doesn't frankly it's of far less import to me and to the government and certainly to the Labour Party that ensuring that we get a fair open transparent electoral system where the sorts of wroughts and the sorts of manipulations of finance the sort of hidden transactions that characterise the 2005 election by the Exclusive Brethren simply should not be allowed to happen again.

LISA	So Minister you're prepared to flag, Labour's prepared to flag away state funding then if it becomes a seedy issue is it?

MARK	State funding is like any other part of this discussion. We've got to put together a package that can enjoy significant support in order to progress, whether or not it includes state funding is of no great consequence compared to the overarching rationale for this package, that is open transparent fair electoral process.

LISA	So why should New Zealanders perhaps be called upon to fund parties that they wouldn't voluntarily give money to?

MARK	Well as I say we don't have the package in front of parliament or the select committee…

LISA	But you've just said this is one of the things you are considering.

MARK	Well one of the rationales has always been, you know if you go back to the 1986 Royal Commission they indicated that a mix of normal membership base fundraising and state funding was a probable and even desirable outcome in terms of MMP, it's a process that applies in many comparable democracies. It's worth having a look at it's certainly something that Labour Party conferences have asked us to do, but if the support's there to have a look at it we will, if not as I say my central concern and the government's central concern is that we ensure that we have an open transparent electoral system where undue influence doesn't reside with those who can simply throw more and more money at an election process. Money should not be the determinant of the outcome of a general election.

LISA	But is this all about actually Labour feathering its own nest, that is one of the allegations, that you obviously have money that is owed for the pledge card and this would help you out at the next election, state funding.

MARK	Well clearly the two things are unconnected, the money that will be paid in terms of that pledge card issue will be paid shortly and if there is a bill before parliament it's going to be sitting in front of a select committee come the end of the financial year, by which time we have always indicated that 800 thousand dollars would be paid, there is not connection, that is a red herring from those who would simply like to distract attention away from the broader issue of reforming and cleaning up our electoral finance system. Where or not there's state funding as I've said before is neither here nor there, it's getting an open fair transparent electoral financial system in place.

RODNEY	There's the problem Lisa. The problem is this Minister, no one actually trusts this government when it comes to electoral laws and the performance of openness and transparency, the Labour Party actually built the taxpayer for over 800 thousand dollars they still haven't paid it back, they actually broke the electoral rules, they then rushed through parliament retrospective legislation to make legal what they'd done at the last election and then only reluctantly agreed to pay the money back and actually still haven't done so, and now the Minister is actually sitting there behind closed doors with you know some political parties not all, but more particularly without the people of New Zealand and democracy isn't owned by the Labour Party, the election shouldn't be sort of rules, shouldn't be designed by the Labour Party, it is the opportunity for the people of New Zealand to have their say and what we're seeing are the rules jacked behind closed doors to suit the Labour Party…it's like everything this government has done I'm afraid.

LISA	Minister in the interests of transparency and openness let's go through the list then. Are you considering lowering the threshold at which donors have to be named? Is that one of the things on the table?

MARK	Lisa I've made it very clear that we'll be bringing to the parliament a package that includes issues and measures to deal with third party expenditure, that deals with accountability, openness …

LISA	In what way Minister?

MARK	When the package is complete, when we've finished our preliminary negotiations we'll bring a package to parliament where the entire parliament can look at it, where every New Zealander with an interest can look at it, it will be referred to a select committee, open to submission….

LISA	So you're not prepared at this point to be open and transparent?

MARK	I'm prepared to be open and transparent in the same way that is normal part of the process of building a piece of legislation, this is not an unusual process, this is the usual MMP process and I'm afraid that others trying to create smoke screens to avoid what is really behind this legislation that's ensuring an open fair transparency about financial transactions around elections, that's what we're setting out to achieve here and of course there are those who benefited from not having that sort of provision in the last election.

LISA	Minister, let's try and end the speculation then, are you planning to outlaw or change donations channelled through trusts, anonymously through trusts, are you going to change that, is that the plan?

MARK	I've made it very clear from the very beginning the select committee interestingly nearly a year ago said look we have got to have a much better system that doesn't allow secret money to be transacted through the political parties. It's certainly always been my intention and I've made no secret about that, but one of the things that we need to achieve through these reforms is a more open and transparent financial transaction system, so there should not be the ability to have large sums of money secretly channelled through anonymous trusts into political party campaign funding absolutely.

LISA	Alright let's bring Gordon Copeland in on this conversation. You we're hearing what's being said here, how much of this can you agree with in terms of what we believe is being discussed?

GORDON COPELAND - MP, United Future
	Well first of all let me say that I'm delighted this debate is occurring, it needs to occur, the last election was a mess, as Rodney has outlined there were laws that were broken and prosecution didn't follow, so we need to sort it.

LISA	So would you support state funding of election campaigns?

GORDON	I think that should be debated, if you go back to the Royal Commission what they pointed out there was that this is actually in accordance with one person one vote kind of philosophy.

LISA	Can we get a yes or no on that Mr Copeland, do you support state funding?

GORDON	In a robust democracy people need to hear all points of view not just the point of view which happens to be given to the electorate by the people with the deepest pockets, so I think we should have that debate.

LISA	Alright, let's come back her into the studio, do you think that Labour has pretty much got it right with what you've seen, what can't you live with?

RUSSELL	Can I just for a second just talk about the principles behind what we're trying to do? We're trying to make sure that our democracy is insulated from the effect of big money if you like, but we also don't want the political parties to be entirely dependent on the state or taxpayers' money either. So what we're trying to do try and find a way through the middle of it so that …

LISA	But Mr Norman with such a serious issue should not all parties at least be included in the conversation?

RUSSELL	There's no question I think the much better way to have done this and you know we've said this all along, the much better way to do it would have been for an independent commission that started last year or the Electoral Commission, that would have been a better way, then there would have been a body separate from the political parties putting up some recommendations like the Royal Commission did in 1986, that would have been a better way to do it. As it is now I think the sooner it gets into a select committee where there can be a proper debate with all the parties and there can be a big public discussion, that would be the best way to go now.

LISA	This morning we're debating possible changes to the way that election campaigns are funded and operated. Joining us is Minister Mark Burton, he's in Rotorua. Mr Burton can you talk through - explain to us what is under consideration. There's lots of debate and speculation, spell it out for us.

MARK	Well basically since discussing the matter with the select committee last year and following on from their report I've made it very clear that we're looking at the whole are of political donations, expenditure, accountability and the openness and transparency around the electoral process that ensures that it is fair and open and not exposed to the undue influence of external finance. So I think you know at the heart of it is ensuring that all ordinary New Zealanders get a fair go, an opportunity to participate and that wealth doesn't equal greater political power.

LISA	So is it your intention, is one of the things under discussion capping the likes of attack campaigns as perhaps the Brethrens launched on Labour and the Greens, are you going to put a cap on money that can be spent on those sorts of campaigns?

MARK	Certainly third party expenditure on political campaigning has got to be part of the consideration, because we have a system that I think quite properly caps the amount political parties, the primary participants in the process of an election campaign can spend. What we saw at the last election campaign was a cynical attempt on the party of the Exclusive Brethren on this occasion to get around the cap that political parties are constrained by, to spend money by their own admission in support of one political party against others, but to get around the attributing of that expenditure to the campaign fund. Now frankly that simply is anti democratic, it undermines the notion of the voices if you like that should be heard during a campaign process being heard properly.

LISA	But that was discovered so surely the system is indeed working, it was brought out into the open, the facts were established, the system is working.

MARK	Well no it isn't because in fact some of that they were able to get away with despite the obvious intent, and I think what we've really learnt from the experience is that we've got to sharpen up the law around election campaign spending really to bring it into line with comparable democracies like the United Kingdom, Canada and so on, that there is a much more clear and accurate process around election expenditure, not only by political parties but by third parties and interest groups.

LISA	So to that end do you envisage giving more powers perhaps to the Electoral Commission to pursue prosecutions, cos there were a number of complaints that went to the Police and didn't go any further?

MARK	Certainly one of the issues that I've been looking at is whether it's the Electoral Commission the Police or somewhere else, I think crucially there certainly does need to be a greater ability not only to have a clearer set of provisions in place to manage electoral expenditure but also the issue of compliance and so certainly that is also very much part of the consideration.

LISA	Thank you very much for joining us this morning Minister, now we're going to open the floor for discussion with our panel, first to Gavin Ellis.

GAVIN ELLIS - Former Editor, New Zealand Herald
	I think that the issue of transparency is the one that needs concentrating on. I think that if we make it mandatory for third parties to disclose their intentions, if we make it mandatory for donors to identify themselves, then this issue of capping I think becomes less of an issue because I don't think that people would have taken the Exclusive Brethren seriously and I don't think they would have been given the opportunity to spend a million dollars because they would have been regarded as an irrelevancy early on in the piece if they were identified. The problem with what we know of the Labour Party's proposals is that it has collateral damage. Now one of the potential damages is that it could well prevent the rise of a new political movement outside of parliament. Now all of the provisions protect the rights of existing parliamentary representative parties.

LISA	Let's put that to the people here for the discussion. You're both from smaller parties, ACT and the Greens, what about the people who want to be campaigning at the next election if you're not in parliament you wouldn't get money?

RODNEY	Oh absolutely and it's what the system does and this is the way it's been designed, it's been designed to favour the existing parties and so with the introduction of MMP actually ACT is the only party to have broken in, why, because the rules are set up to favour the status quo, and that's what disturbs me about this is that you're actually seeing a party behind closed doors, they're actually only talking to the parties that they need to to get the numbers to actually get this through the House, so what that means is there is actually not going to be any proper consultation because they're talking to the Greens and to the United Party, and they're saying okay what can you live with, let's get the numbers here and then we'll present it to the public and put it through parliament and actually the Labour Party will have the numbers to pass it, and what they're saying it's not a normal piece of legislation. This is actually legislation that decides who should be governing New Zealand, who should be in parliament, what's the rights of political expression in New Zealand, this should not be decided by politicians and it certainly shouldn't be decided in a partisan way which is what's happening now behind closed doors. Talk about openness and transparency there is none, there is none.

LISA	Russell Norman, no transparency.

RUSSELL	Just responding to your point about you know whether it stops new players if you like, I mean one of the points that Andrew Geddes has made, who's you know one of the experts on campaign finance reform is that what matters is whether you have a threshold for the public funding or the state funding if you're gonna have that, and so I think it's very important that you get it whether you're in parliament or not. If we're gonna have some kind of partial state funding of political parties then you should get it on a per vote basis or whatever whether you get into parliament or not, cos otherwise I agree it can lock in the players that are already there, so I think we need to have an open door on that.

RODNEY	But why should taxpayers who pay their money for the Police for the health system why should that money be taken to find political parties that they don't support and in fact could they strongly oppose it.

LISA	Let's bring Gordon Copeland into the conversation down in Wellington. Mr Copeland do you think this should pass with a simple majority or should the government need to get overwhelming support for this because it is such a contentious issue?

GORDON	Well I think the greater across parties support that can be obtained for an issue like this the better, but Lisa I'd like to just take an opportunity to say that the consultation that say Labour's having with United Future, you've got to remember that that also gives us some input into what's proposed, and I'd like to say that I've given some thought personally to some things which are not yet being discussed in this programme which I think should be.

LISA	But will your party toe the government line on this as it's done in the past?

GORDON	Oh that's a ridiculous comment. We only support the government on the pledge cards things, everything else we have an independent voice on, we make our own decision, I was about to tell you for example that one of my ideas is I think we should follow the example of the United States and Canada and limit donations and third party activity to simply natural persons, I think we should actually take out of the loop the unions and companies, there are ethical issues with having both unions and companies involved in either donations on the one hand or third party activity on the other, and I think that should be debated.

LISA	What about non profit organisations, should they be allowed to put their ten cents worth in on the campaign trail?

GORDON	Well the ethical problem I'm alluding to is simply this, as we all know unions belong to members, companies belong to shareholders. Now there will be people in unions for example who vote United Future or for the ACT party, and it's wrong ethically to take a share of their money and simply give it to the Labour Party, and that needs to be addressed. The same thing is true with companies, if we went to the Shareholders Association right now they would say we don't believe it's right for our company to give a big donation say to the National Party when we know that a lot of our shareholders actually intend to give their vote to United Future or someone else like the Labour Party, so there's an issue about that which we would like to bring to the table…

LISA	Let's bring David Beatson in, he has got plenty to say on this.

DAVID BEATSON
	Well I'm just interested in what a fair open transparent process is being pursued at the moment. The fact is that some legislation is being prepared. The fact is that the government and its coalition partners are determining the frame of that legislation. I think that is an undesirable process, I think we should have had a situation in which the Electoral Commission or some other independent body accepted submissions from the public whose interests are absolutely paramount in this, absolutely paramount, and that should have led the whole process so that we had if you like an independent frame for a debate. At the moment that's being cobbled together by a set of coalition cobblers.

LISA	Would you like to answer to that Russell?

RUSSELL	I agree with David I think he's right. I mean I think there's no question, this is not the ideal process, I totally agree with you.

LISA	So what have you said to Labour about that?

RUSSELL	What we've gotta do now in my view is that I think that that should have started last year right, I think that was the time to start it, I don't think there's time now to get it sorted out before election year.

DAVID	That's been said at every election before. I've been involved in dishing out the dosh in elections in the past and I can tell you that recommendations after recommendations election after election were made and there was never time to deal with them, and we're hearing the same old story.

RUSSELL	What do we do now, cos I think we do need to sort it out now, so what I reckon we should do is try to tie off some of the worst problems that were revealed last time and actually then get a proper process going.

LISA	Alright, we'll leave it there, thank you very much gentlemen, well you can see a full transcript and video highlights of that interview on our website www.agendtv.co.nz.


EMPTY NEWSROOMS
Ethics Under Threat

LISA	Well journalists on the New Zealand Herald are protesting a proposal to outsource the subediting of their paper. Sub Editors are the journalists who write headlines and check stories for accuracy and grammar and spelling. The Herald protest comes a day after TVNZ announced it was axing around 60 newsroom jobs. These moves come as part of an international trend in which media owners are seeing their profits squeezed by the proliferation of new media. Chris Warren is Secretary of the Australia Media Workers Union and President of the International Federation of Journalists, he joins me now. So what's going on down at the Herald.

CHRIS WARREN - President International Federation of Journalists
	Well I think what we're seeing is part of a global trend by too many media companies to try and deal with the challenges of new media by cutting costs, whereas if anything what media companies need to be doing is investing in journalism, investing in quality to try and meet the challenges that they face.

LISA	So the public watching this though they'll say so you're centralising sub editing with a company, so what. Explain what it's gonna mean for the person who picks up the paper.

CHRIS	It'll mean two things, it'll mean first of all a decline in accuracy and quality of the paper.

LISA	How do you know that?

CHRIS	Cos we know that, because wherever it's been tried around the world that's been the result. APN which owns the New Zealand Herald tried this with a group of its papers in Australia and ended up disbanding the system because when you centralise the subediting you lose a lot of the local knowledge, and you lose a lot of the interplay.

LISA	And the direct connection to the reporter who's done the story.

CHRIS	And the editors and what we call the back bench, the people who are actually putting the paper together on a particular day. The result of that is people get simple things wrong and I think often it's when the media gets simple things wrong like the name of the local mayor or directing people to turn left into a one way street, it's when papers get those simple things wrong that often does more to undermine the credibility of the media than some of our perhaps larger more egregious errors.

LISA	So this is dollar driven in your view entirely?

CHRIS	Well I don't think the company makes any secret of the fact that it's dollar driven, it's also corporate drive, this is being done both in New Zealand and also on the company's Irish paper, the Irish Independent, probably it's other large daily paper.

LISA	So it's a global trend?

CHRIS	Well it's a global trend within this company. All companies are trying to grapple with their costs in the current climate, this is the only company to my knowledge that's embarked on such a large outsourcing of such a core function of the newspaper.

LISA	Let's bring our panel into the discussion, our media panel, going to Gavin Ellis. What do you think is happening with the quality of journalism as a result of this kind of penny pinching?

GAVIN	I think that there are, as Chris says, there are real concerns about the future quality of media, not just newspapers but other media are doing similar things. Outsourcing is becoming a much wider trend, it is a global trend and I think that there are real concerns there. What concerns us about the current proposal is that it's the outsourcing of the subbing of live news. Now I outsourced television programmes and horse racing … because I felt that was a waste of a sub editor's time and I made no apologies for that. Live news is a different issue and it's a different issue because subediting is not a one way flow, it's not a linear process that goes like that, it's backwards and forwards up and down and all over the place, and I'm not sure how that aspect of subediting is going to operate in a remote situation like this.

LISA	We're discussing recent cuts in local media outlets in New Zealand, going to our panel. Gavin Ellis just what do you think these kinds of cuts might be doing to journalistic ethics, is it getting more ruthless to get the story?

GAVIN	I think that was media outlets grow, competition grows and that places pressures on editors and journalists to compete more vociferously if you like. I would say that the ethics of editors and sub editors and journalists at the moment is not different to what it has been, but pressure does things to people's decision making processes and if they have less time to make decisions because they have more work to do because there are fewer people then mistakes are going to be made.

LISA	Let's look at an example, recently it was I think the Herald on Sunday that ran a retraction in relation to a story about Brad Shipton's wife and a quote from Brad Shipton's wife, it subsequently came back and said they hadn't spoken to Mrs Shipton. What do you make of that, was the retraction enough to restore confidence?

GAVIN	I'm not privy to what went on in the Herald on Sunday but if it were me I would have instituted an internal inquiry into what happened with that story and if a journalist was found wanting, if they had deliberately misled then I think they should pay the consequences.

LISA	David Beatson in the area of broadcast journalism are they facing similar pressures that we're seeing in the papers?

DAVID	Well frankly I'm a little less concerned about whether subediting gets outsourced than I am at whether or not up to 160 people suddenly vanish from a news gathering organisation which is planning to run a 24 hour a day news channel next year. Now I can't quite understand how that's going to work, and I'll be very interested to see the result. The pressure will go on and we'll have a situation shortly if these number reductions continue where the number of people who actually front the news will be equivalent to the number of people reporting the news in the Auckland newsroom. Now I think that's pretty unacceptable and you know you're getting to a situation in which yes there will be far more selection about what is covered and isn't covered, the judgements that will come into play will be judgements about can we get - what's the max audience potential out of this, rather than how important is the story and the substance of stories will have far less importance in those judgements than the form of them. I think yes with this viewers, listeners, are the losers.

LISA	Is he right Chris Warren?

CHRIS	Well that's been the global trend, we are seeing greater errors, greater concerns about the media, almost all driven by the sort of cost pressures that media workers are on, the journalists are on in their various media outlets that they work for.

LISA	So how do you stop the slashing of resources then?

CHRIS	Well I think more employers need to look at what the actual research shows which is that if you want your media organisation to survive then you need to invest in quality, you need to invest in journalism.

LISA	Thank you very much to our panellists this morning, David Beatson and Gavin Ellis.