I don't mean to suggest that some people are "buying" politicians, in the sense of writing cheques in return for express promises from politicians. We don't usually know the motivations behind large political donations. But it's reasonable to assume that companies existing solely to make profit aren't giving cash out of feelings of altruism. We should not be naive enough to think that donors don't want something in return for their money, even if what they want is never expressed openly.
It's obvious that parties promoting certain types of policies will be supported by those organisations and individuals who stand to benefit by those policies. So unions give money to Labour, rich cranks donate to ACT, and corporates and wealthy individuals are more likely to give to National.
But despite all of these things being obvious, we still retain the capacity to be surprised whenever a story emerges showing that a party or politician is acting in a way that might potentially benefit a donor.
The Clayton Cosgrove donation scandal (one is tempted to use the term "beat-up" rather than "scandal") illustrates this point. There is no evidence that the donor, Independent Fisheries Limited, pressured Cosgrove into pursuing any sort of property development legislative change, and yet it's likely that IFL donated to Cosgrove because it saw some benefit in doing so. Perhaps the company's owners thought Cosgrove was sensitive generally to the concerns of land-owners in the Christchurch area, and paid the money in the hope he would be re-elected. This is really no different to a company giving National cash because the Nats are "business-friendly".
In the perfect world politicians would not accept cash from anyone, because the risk of undue influence is always present where parties are funded by donations. But what choice does a party have under our current system? Cake stalls and sausage sizzles will only take a political party so far.
But this post is not intended to be a defence of Clayton Cosgrove. Unless more details emerge about the IFL donation the story seems doomed to disappear in a few days. That a politician pursued policies that appeared to favour someone who donated to his party is hardly a scoop.
There is an obvious solution to the donation problem. Full state-funding of political parties would cost only a few million dollars per year, but it would do away with much of the suspicion that surrounds politicians, and would go some way towards restoring the public's trust in our political system. We would of course need to have a robust debate over the make-up of any funding system, to ensure it was fair and didn't entrench the power of the main parties, and we would need to accept that any system we implemented would be imperfect and would need ongoing refinement.
Those groups who currently have influence would probably object to such a system, but that's precisely why we should be looking at this seriously.
Such a system would be difficult to sell to the public, but it would be worth the effort if it helped to clean up our political system.
I've just suggested something at KB that would allow propr anonymity of donations.
ReplyDeleteSurely there’s an easy solution to potential conflicts of interest with donations. The chance of becoming part of a political bunfight must discourage people and companies fromk making political donations.
Why not have a neutral clearing house for all donations, maybe via the Electoral Commission?
All donations, (or all over, say, $100) to be paid to a trust account and distributed from there to the recipient party or MP as a regular lump sum. Then there is no chance of knowing for sure where any donations have come from.
Couldn't someone behind a large donation just give the recipient a phone call and say "hey what's up you know that bazillion dollar donation? That was me. Give my regards to the wife and kids."
DeleteAnother problem is that if it really IS the case that donors expect something from their donation (even if not as much as their every whim being made law), then why would they give anonymously? And if they don't give anonymously, then where will parties get the money they need to actually do their jobs?
DeleteIt doesn't have to be as crass as a direct exchange of money for favours (although I have absolutely no doubt that this has actually happened even in 'clean' New Zealand). If you're a business (or a union, for that matter) and you make a large donation for a political party or an individual politician, you are buying the guarantee that when that party or that politician is called upon to oppose or support a measure that concerns the donor, they will do so knowing that how they vote might affect whether they receive money again at the next election, and how much. That is a pretty powerful motivator.
ReplyDeleteAt what point does a party get funding though? Do you get it if you're a registered political party outside of parliament?
ReplyDeleteIt might restore faith in the electoral system, but I've never seen how it could work in such a way as to not reinforce the presence of the major parties.
Yes, that is a challenge any state-funding system would have to overcome. The last thing our democracy needs is for the main parties to become permanently entrenched. Still, if a nascent political movement can gather enough support to become a credible force, there may be some way to measure that. The number of members a party has?
DeleteFew things to think about:
ReplyDelete(1) While it may be true that "cake stalls and sausage sizzles will only take a political party so far", the fact that parties (and local candidates) have to rely (to some degree) on such events gives their membership base some measure of control over the party . I mean, one of the criticisms of MMP is that it already gives party hierarchies too much power - and Labour is, of course, going through its own review of the structure of the party to address complaints that ordinary members are too easily ignored. So what happens if you suddenly give parties a guaranteed funding stream that pays for professional operatives to sit in Wellington and decide on what party policy/operations will be pursued - without members then having the power to pull their dollars from the party in protest? Is there some way this potential consequence of state funding can be ameliorated - by state-mandated rules of internal democracy, or the like?
(2) The blithe statement "[w]e would of course need to have a robust debate over the make-up of any funding system, to ensure it was fair and didn't entrench the power of the main parties ..." skates over a myriad of more-than-technical issues. A US law professor once wrote something along the lines of, "saying you are in favour of state funding is like saying you like sport. The question then is, which sport are we talking about? Rugby? Soccer? Cricket? Netball?" So, we'd need to decide what a party needs to do to get a bit of the pie, and how much will each party get? Will the public funding system cover constituency candidates as well? If not, what about independent candidates - do they get nothing? Do we fund just campaign costs, or do we fund all aspects of a party's activities?
(3) What about other ways to dal with the problem of donor influence - say, by banning donations from anyone except those enrolled on the electoral roll, limiting how much each person may give, and then introducing tax credits to encourage small donations (like we do with gifts to charity)?
(4) Or, alternatively, we could just say "yes, we know private donations will go towards parties and candidates the donor thinks will help her or him. But we do ask that our parties/candidates avoid taking money in situations that look to an outsider to be so close to outright corruption that it calls the basic integrity of our lawmaking into question." And then whack those parties/candidates who can't live up to this expectation so hard that the others learn a valuable lesson.
Yes, there's plenty to think about. To many people the idea of the state funding politicians (more than it already does) in any circumstances is anathema, which is why I didn't go into how any system might work.
DeleteBut there are plenty of possibilities, For example, could funding be linked somehow (at least in part) to party membership numbers? A party that ignored its membership would accordingly suffer financially.
Another solution might be to have a hybrid of both state and private funding, where the size of donations is capped, and where any shortfall is made up by the state. Of course, then the issue becomes one of determining who gets what, which is not an easy question to answer.
You're right that one alternative would be to just punish those parties that take money in situations that smell too much like corruption. But since all parties seem to be doing it, I'm not sure where that gets us.
I'm not suggesting I have all the answers, but it seems to me that the current system isn't working well.
I rather like number 3 Andrew. I presume it comes with a whole host of problems that I haven't thought of, but on the face of it, it doesn't look bad.
DeleteIf that private funding was distributed to via the local party and that was combined with some form of state funding (problems acknowledged), that would possibly be good place to start. [/idle musings]
I agree we need state funding of parties, but the mechanism becomes all important. What do we wish to achieve by state funding of parties? My view is we want parties more responsive to the needs of voters and less vulnerable to the influence of corporate money. To that end, one necessary initial reform would be the creation of a parliamentary “cordon sanitaire” around the offices of MPs where only MPs and their parliamentary staffers are allowed – no one else, no lobbyists, mates, WAGS, no one – else would be allowed to enter.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the state funding of political parties by elite organisations of any type (independent commission, or poll based formulas or whatever) is it freezes the political landscape in a particular place in time with incumbent parties at the moment of the inception of funding being heavily favoured. This is bad because firstly I believe the institutionalisation of political parties over the last 70-80 years is the cause of much of the current malaise of anglosphere democracy. Our political parties have grown decadent and self serving, more exercises in branding as part of an insulated political and business elite than representative of their constituents. The current lack of dynamism and generally slothful performance of the current parliamentary Labour Party can I believe be largely sheeted home to a bunch non-performing and complacent careerist professional politicians at the very top of the parliamentary party, a group who have worked out that by controlling the selection process (easily done in an elite cadre party in a disengaged electorate) they are (short of total brand implosion) effectively immune from voter punishment. The second reason I dislike the institutionalisation of political parties is they remain outside most of our constitutional checks and balances. Political parties are now the central players in our democracy, yet they are barely regulated in a constitutional sense, hence the waka jumping and other shenanigans of the political elites when it suits the self interest of themselves or the corporate elite they are increasingly intertwined with. To reinforce their role with state money whilst keeping oversight of their machinery to a minimum is I believe a not only a dangerously undemocratic step (for example, by stacking the funding commission with partisan hacks a party could skew funding to itself to lock in it’s grip on power) nut also a step that would have the practical outcome of serving to make worse the disconnect between MPs and the increasing disengagement of voters from the political process.
The two systems I would like to see then is either all enrolled voters given a state funding voucher for, say, $5 every three years that they can donate to a political party of their choice, or a funding vouchers being simply based on party membership numbers. The more members you have, the more money you get. The first system has the virtue of including all voters – they all get a voucher! - but it does not address the elite cadre party of out-of-touch careerists issue. Funding based on membership is attractive, but it raises enforcement issues and could be vulnerable to manipulation. Maybe some sort of combination of the two methods could be the way to go.
To buy into this debate assumes that candidate advertising can influence what voters think, and thus how they vote. Thus, it's more that we need a debate about the nature of democracy, which has become the biggest 'threat' to the free, civilised (classical liberal) society.
ReplyDeleteIf I want to give money for a political campaign, it's nobody else's business. If I have tax extorted from me to fund the campaigns for philosophies I find abhorrent, that is, at best, a fraud.
We already have state funding of parties. Apart from advertising dished out, incumbent MPs have support staff, post and travel that all make it easier for them to compete in an election.
ReplyDeleteIt's important to maintain a means of private donations.
How would the Conservative Party have been able to get anywhere without donations?
The Conservative Party is an interesting one. It was bankrolled almost entirely by Colin Craig, and the enormous amounts of cash he spent helped his party to get 2.65% of the popular vote.
DeleteHad he not donated the amounts he did I doubt the party would have reached 1%. It's an example of one person "buying" influence, although in his case the party didn't win a seat.
Are we okay with multimillionaires with a bit of spare cash to spend launching their own vanity parties in this fashion?
Well it's not exactly a new thing to NZ politics for 1 percenter's to launch their own vanity party.... No one seemed to object too much to Bob Jones doing so a few years back with the "New Zealand Party".
Delete"...How would the Conservative Party have been able to get anywhere without donations..?"
ReplyDeleteNormally I would assume this was a delicious use of irony, but in Pete George's case.
The Conservative Party is not really a political party. It is an astroturfing vanity vehicle for a religious zealot to push to his moral agenda. The Conservative party is precisely the sort of purchased politics state funding would prevent ever getting the light of day. If Colin Craig is prepared to put in the hard yards, grow his branch and regional membership and eventually elect MP(s) on the back of a mighty party machine then good on him. But using his money to try and buy a seat? Not so much.
"If Colin Craig is prepared to put in the hard yards, grow his branch and regional membership and eventually elect MP(s) on the back of a mighty party machine then good on him."
DeleteAh, the foot soldiers promoting the hard yards approach.
To progress through that system you need to be a party crawler and know how to work the system. That doesn't guarantee a good range of MPs, does it Labour.
"...it's more that we need a debate about the nature of democracy, which has become the biggest 'threat' to the free, civilised (classical liberal) society..."
ReplyDeleteIt is always good flush out the libertarian Taliban early in the debate.
And given you should know what an extreme oxymoron 'libertarian Taliban' is, you just squashed intelligent dabate.
DeleteAnd why not lose the pseudonym and actually stand by what you believe in?
... vis a vis can anyone give evidence that the level of - dollar spend - political advertising is linked to changes in voting behaviour?
Delete"Why not use the pseudonym..." That is none of your business, I am free (in both the normal sense and the weird, non-dictionary, sense you use the word) to use whatever name I please, so stick that in your Ayn Rand lovin' pipe and smoke it matey.
DeleteAnyway, I am not the one identifying democracy as the enemy. Anyone who calls democracy a threat to his vision of a free society exists on the same intellectual plane as the Taliban, or indeed any group of fanatics who also sees democracy as a threat to their peculiar vision of a more perfect society.
So Taliban toting rocket propelled grenades, Libertarians toting toss pot theoretical nonsense, all are equally annoying to me and therefore to my mind both equally deserve close scrutiny by pizza devouring drone pilots in Nevada.
@Mark: ".. vis a vis can anyone give evidence that the level of - dollar spend - political advertising is linked to changes in voting behaviour?"
DeleteNo, they can't. The evidence for this effect is quite weak. However, the reality is that parties and candidates all ACT as if spending matters ... which is why they try so hard to raise and spend money. And they then need to get that money from somewhere. Which then raises the sorts of potential corruption/unequal influence problems that Scott is discussing.
Point being, you are asking the wrong question. It isn't so much whether spending does in fact change voting behaviour (and if it doesn't do so, would there actually be any problem in having a rule saying people can't spend anything on elections?) It is whether the fundraising practices adopted to get the money that parties/candidates think they need to spend (even if they are completely wrong about that, and their spending is achieving nothing) has an unhealthy impact on our democracy.
... so where is the evidence that the level of - dollar spend - political advertising is linked to changes in voting behaviour?
DeleteOr, are you emoting in the same unsubstantiated manner as the Chairman of the NZX over women on boards - per my update 2 to this blog post.
And then a challenge for you.
A democracy exists of, say, ten people: six white people and four black people. A plebiscite is held on the notion that white people have an entitlement to live off the efforts of black people, via a special tax on black people. In a majority, democratic vote, the proposition is won 6-4.
Do you have an more qualms over that, Santuary?
Now change black people to taxpayers ...
Andrew, my above post is for Sanctuary .. we must have been posting at same time :)
DeleteAnd what would YOU do if a Hun was raping your sister?
DeleteGoodness me, and in my response to Sanctuary that's moral qualms, not more qualms ...
DeletePardon? I would in the first instance, defend my sister. But in the second instance, though a-priori, I'm not advocating anarchy, just a classical liberal constitutional minarchy: there is still the rule of law, still and army, still a police force, but that, and running a criminal and civil legal system is the sum total of what the small state should be involved with. No need for politicians bribing an electorate with redistributing what is mine to the whim of the tyranny of the majority.
DeleteYou've got to stop thinking in straight lines, and like a slave.
To me your question is a nice intellectual conceit for teenage undergraduates intoxicated at the first exposure to political philosophy and worrying themselves silly at the idea of the tyranny of the majority. So to me, If you have failed to advance from that first flush of giddy outrage to a deeper understanding of democracy that is your problem, and your loss, not mine.
DeleteIt is the sort of absolutist question you often get from the intellectually immature - the rhetorical equivalent of a playground "nah nah nah so there." The great strength of democracy lies in its refusal to be weighed and measured, to provide a neat tick box solution for every problem, to excuse you from the bothersome and tiresome need for debate across numerous disciplines. Your question is nonsense, since it pre-supposes democracy is as rigid and nonsensical as your own philosophy. Democracy is a living, moving, warm blooded beast, when you yearn for a triumph of the taxidermist's art.
That is why I guess democracy is hated by Libertartians who seem to approach every issue as if some form of cosmic neo-liberal economic theory of political zero-sum applies to everything. Your question is, I suppose, the rub that hints at the nihilism that lies at the heart of your libertarian definition of "freedom."
So, you have no moral qualms then about that example?
DeleteDemocracy is indeed a living, moving, 'beast', but as it works over time, always, on politicians' offering voters a free lunch, it will always end on the bust we saw August 2008, for which there is no fix. And moral bankruptcy, of course.
Do you read your own posts and realise how arrogant you sound? You want a society in which the village owns me, I just want a society founded on voluntarism where I am simply part of the village: just as Rousseau envisaged in his social contract. A civilised society.
In other words. I want a society in which I have no say over your life, and so long as you're not initiating force or fraud on others', you can do whatever you like. You want a brute society, again, where I am sacrificed to the needs of everyone else.
As well as the GFC, watch the violence on the news every night. It doesn't end well when self reliance, self responsibility and natural love and affection, are replaced by the give-me-that-I'm-entitled-to-it society.
And you still don't have the gumption to put a name to your beliefs. You've learned, well, I guess, from your advocacy of the society that owns you: stay under the radar for survival.
DeleteThat's not any sort of society I want.
Andrew, sorry, I didn't answer to you in the end. From my point of view I'm not asking the wrong question. Per my 'debate' with Sanctury above, you can see I believe democracy to be the problem. Undue influence is not an issue where there are no politicians that can make laws which affect my liberty.
DeleteHey Sanctuary, you've been an inspiration to me: Democracy: The Problem & New Symptom – Foetal Alcohol Syndrome.
DeleteWe first need to ask ourselves: why do political parties need money? Perhaps if they want to ask for our votes, they should simply door knock and hold public meetings; do they even need to advertise or poll at all?
ReplyDeleteIf we do want state funding of political parties, while retaining the requirement that there is some connection with voters, it could be done, by, for example, giving every voter a $10 voucher that they can give to a party or candidate whom they want to support, which covers their costs for the next three years.
But, really, I'm not sure there is an answer which is actually good. What is probably needed is a change in political culture. Public disgust at non-party advertising, and an informed and interested electorate who don't need to be polled or yelled at. Get one of those, and the importance of money may diminish, such that donations are less relevant.
I think you know nature abhors a vacuum, and therefore any cessation of political party spending will simply see the vacuum filled by special interest advertising around election time. Of course, any debate around funding political parties doesn't address the elephant in the room - advertising by third parties, usually rich reactionaries or corporations, that attempt to skew public debate. How you deal with this sort of political advertising, beyond a total advertising ban 3-6 months out from an election (which as we've already seen in NZ raises big freedom of expression issues) is a question as equally important as party funding.
DeleteI agree with you - political culture needs changing, but political culture is in a chicken and egg relationship with our broken media culture. Maybe media ownership needs to be addressed as well. The phone hacking scandal was brought to light not by any of the faux-populist Murdoch tabloids, but by the supposed intellectual middle brow Guardian, a newspaper which is owned by a charitable trust. The Murdoch media business model may or may not eventually devour itself, who cares, but it might take democracy with it as collateral damage. Is the fourth estates role in a democracy is to important to be left solely to the free market?
"why do political parties need money? Perhaps if they want to ask for our votes, they should simply door knock and hold public meetings; do they even need to advertise or poll at all?"
ReplyDeleteIf you followed this approach of having entirely volunteer run campaigns and relying almost entirely on face to face communication most political parties in NZ would only be able to reach a really tiny percentage of voters. It is not just that you need volunteers to knock on the doors but also volunteers to organize those volunteers, volunteers to run the database to ensure you don't knock on the same doors three times, etc etc.
Maybe it is ok if political parties only reach a tiny proportion of voters? But I don't see how it could lead to the type of informed and interested democracy you want? I think you could argue it is a good thing that most voters in NZ get the opportunity (via leaflets, TV advertising, radio ads and so on) to compare political parties policies and make a reasonably informed vote.
I'd agree that there is not a strong relationship between voter behaviour and amount spend on advertising but I am pretty sure that there is a positive relationship, it is just obscured by so much other noise it's almost impossible to detect. Like Scott, I don't believe that if the Conservatives had only spent say $100,000 on their campaign, rather than $1.5 million, they would have got 2.65% of the vote. Similarly, I am pretty sure that if the Green Party had spent say twice as much on their campaign, they would have got more votes. Not twice as many votes - but probably 1 or 2% more. Obviously i can't prove any of this but that is my gut feeling.
The voucher system is a fun idea although I think that it (like many other approaches) favours incumbent parties over newcomers.