What they've been saying about the EFB

The Electoral Finance Bill (EFB) http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?m=20071119 has been probably the most controversial piece of legislation to be placed before the New Zealand Parliament since the government used 'Retrospective/Validating Legislation' to approve a deliberate overspend by the Labour Party in the 2005 election. This resulted in the Darnton v Clark lawsuit. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10395879

Is the EFB is a pivotal moment in New Zealand's constitutional history?, and what have the other blogs, and other bloggers have been saying about it?

'Monkeys with Typewriters' was born as a result of an online ding-dong I was having with a poster called 'sonic' one day, in kiwiblog http://kiwiblog.co.nz/. it was about nothing in particular, but he remarked something along the lines of 'you can give a thousand monkeys typewriters and they will eventually produce Shakespeare, but that is more likely than me ever saying anything clever on a blog.'


This use of the monkey with typewriter imagery tickled me hugely. So here it is.


Needless to say, along with the knowledgeable and astute bloggers out there, it is the other 'monkeys with typewriters' on the other blogs that are the stars of this blog.


After the euphoria of debate around the Bill, in which the right accused the left of eroding democracy, the left retaliated by accusing the right of cow-towing to big business.

But also there is a worry about who will speak for the average kiwi? The National Party have shown such ineptitude over their handling of the oppositon to this Bill, and the Labour Party has gone to such extremes to maintain it as a 'beltway issue', that I feel that New Zealanders have been left out of the debate completely.

Apart from when the new Zealand Herald stepped in to slam the Bill. I wonder if they too will require some lind of regulation after this?

The consensus, perhaps may decide that 'democracy' is the main victim of the EFB, and not for the obvious reasons of its appalling drafting, either.

I'll be back later with some reports.