He has done the figures on what it would take to publically fund the (public) Elections with a system of democracy vouchers as a solution.

NZ has been a place of experimentation for economic policies, and eftpos etc, why not democracy vouchers?

It’s true that NZ’s political parties didn’t get near the threshold this time around but I think that in one electoral cycle they will be getting close and in another they will be struggling to stay under (assuming it doesn’t get raised).

It’s like an arms race – people will always try and spend more than the other side, even if there really isn’t much actual benefit from it. And I think there IS actually a benefit in extra spending (even though, obviously, there’s a diminishing return for each dollar spent).

So I think we do need caps and I think there’s a pretty strong argument for either lowering them or keeping them the same for quite some time (until inflation catches up).

Yeah, the risk with state funding of political parties is that it will stop new parties entering politics unless (like the Conservatives) they have an incredibly wealthy millionaire willing to fund them. I can’t really see a way around this either – do you know of any country where they fund new parties and, if so, how do they manage it to ensure people don’t just take advantage of the system?

I’d prefer to go with option 2, and not option 1. If you have enough guaranteed funding for political parties, then extra spending on top of that won’t matter too much. That’s why we saw no political party come close to the electoral spending threshold. If you’ve sent leaflets out to every household in NZ a couple of times, put up a certain amount of billboards, and run a few adds on television, extra spending is probably wasted. So if you provide all major parties with enough money to do all that, then you can get rid of any caps (and so get rid of the concerning, but not fatal, freedom-of-speech stuff that comes from having caps).

The problem with that approach is that you wouldn’t provide commensurate funding for very minor parties, such as the Conservatives, so you tend to lock in the status quo. That’s unfortunate, but not fatal.

Your option 3 is interesting. I’ve never thought of that argument when considering a gour year term, but it is important.

Darrel buybikes247

“Honey, I know I’ve already got 5 bikes but… ”

Hope you don’t mind but I have posted a link here:

http://eclecticcyclistnz.blogspot.co.nz/

Cheers – barry.