State funding may be answer
Jim Bolger always had his eye on the horizon. The farmer with gumboots planted firmly in the fertile soil of his Te Kuiti farm saw greater opportunity in concrete streets and corridors over the hills. Then, as prime minister, he famously urged us to look to our wider neighbourhood in Asia for trade and prosperity.
Now Sir Jim Bolger is looking once more at that horizon. And he is worried.
As New Zealanders consider the possibility of political funding infractions, Bolger is asking us to consider a more global threat. NZ First leader Winston Peters and others have questions to answer about the relationship between their political party and the New Zealand First Foundation, which appears to have been set up to take donations from party supporters.
The Electoral Commission must evaluate also what constitutes a loan and a donation, whether either of these passed between the foundation and party, and whether both were transparent and lawful in their transactions.
Bolger acknowledges this, similar allegations against National being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, and the attendant scrutiny of the infrastructure of our democracy. But he sees the threat and possible impact of foreign money on our political system as just as dangerous as the possibility of undue influence being secured by wealthy, anonymous sources within its borders.
One solution, he argues, is state funding of political parties, long the practice in Germany, Canada and Sweden. As Bolger told Radio NZ, surely protecting the integrity of the political process is worth ‘‘a few dollars’’.
State funding appears to make sense: parties would have their election cycle funded by taxpayers, in much the same way we already pay for their parliamentary business and workforce.
According to the 2018 Parliamentary Service annual report, that cost us $122 million, with money allocated based on a party’s political footprint. We also contribute to their advertising campaigns during general elections, with the Electoral Commission paying $3.7m in 2017, again based on the parties’ slice of the House cake.
So it would not be much of a stretch to extend that funding to all of the parties’ business, thereby eliminating the need for donations and possibly questionable deals.
Bolger and others might believe that would remove the problem, but as political commentator Bryce Edwards points out, questions about the source of donations would then be replaced by others. The modern democracy has been characterised, in part, by the rise of a political elite removed from those they purport to represent. Greater state funding might widen that gulf by removing the need to go to rank and file members for support, further centralising power in the parties.
Ring-fencing that funding and effectively outlawing donations might also hamper the efforts of other, smaller groups keen to get involved.
There will, of course, be solutions. A mixed model that incorporates some form of bulk-funding but allows for small donations and public input could be the answer. But first the public must answer another important question: what is the lesser of two possible evils? A system that allows the possibility of corruption and the unseen influence of some, or one that risks reducing the input of all?
Greater state funding might ... remove the need to go to a rank and file members for support.