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Hi
In the last elections the green party was hit hard by leaflets. They could not afford to reply in an equal manner. What they did was not excercising free speech. Their money allowed them to reach a the whole country. In other words if you have money you get to influence society and others cannot afford to oppose you. This is not democracy. The taxpayer is funded by Joe Blogs who would like to be on an even footing with regard to influencing elections as is Bob Jones etc.
If everyone cannot afford to have equal ability to have their view put it is not democracy. We are not prosecuting people for blogging or speaking or callingtalk back. We are saying the rich cannot purchase the right to unchallengeable media influence on elections. Most of us simply cannot afford to challenge nationwide leaflet drops. Newspaper advertising etc. We live in a democracy where the fact that all our votes are counted equally says alot. All our voices shouldalso be heard equally thanks. |
| Posted by Paula at 2008-01-13 15:31:38 |
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And if nobody but politicians can speak a word out loud (yes, the EFA even covers spoken words and advertising that doesn't cost any money!) critical of a political party without stating their name and address (Section 5(a) & 63(2) of Electoral Finance Act)? What do you call that?
Raising awareness about any political issue requires money. Groups band together and they buy mass market advertising to spread awareness. All groups do this at every election, the difference is that this time a whole lot of groups hate Labour and therefore that'll be what the majority of the advertising will be about. Next election it'll be the opposite (assuming National wins and makes a mess of things) Most will be unions, and issue-campaigners. Very few will be individuals and none are likely to be corporates (who will generally donate to political parties instead).
Just because the compromisers (i.e. Labour and the Greens) are in trouble with everyone in this particular instance, doesn't mean we should rob everyone who's not a politician of the right to oppose them.
And while we're at it, what exactly was wrong with the Brethren's campaign? The individual Brethren who paid for the ads published their name & address on all of their leaflets, and were open about how much they spent. So much so that the Greens could name & shame them!
We are merely forsaking our ability to unite and campaign together to benefit of a bunch of compromising "left wing" careerists.
As I've said before, trading right-wing fascists for the facism of the left-wing compromisers is no trade off at all: Vote Alliance! |
| Posted by Left Behind at 2008-02-01 11:20:49 |
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| Political parties already have to put up with limitations on what they can spend on election advertising. However, these limitations don't make sense if parties can sidestep them by getting friends and cronies to advertise on their behalf. |
| Posted by mike at 2008-02-11 13:54:16 |
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