Helen Clark has been warned by the electoral commission for being in breach of Labour's Electoral Finance Act (EFA).
The issue is that her face and voice is instantly familiar and is "more Labour than the Labour Party" according to the various Labour funded blog sites that infest the internet. Accordingly, the Commission has ruled each public appearance of Helen Clark counts as $2,000 towards their campaign spending limit, unless she wears a paper bag over her head.
Other politicians have also been warned of various Electoral Finance Act Breaches:
Winston Peters - for making misleading claims on policy - particularly using a Sign with the word "No", or any moving of the lips.
Dr Michael Cullen - may not approach within 5 metres of a dog turd as people will mistake it for his financial rescue package. Any person seeing a dog turd is to report such sightings to the Electoral Commission who will add $345.50 to Labour's election expenditure for advocating policy using instantly recognisable props.
Rodney Hide - For wearing a yellow jacket, in contravention of clause 569.234, a subsection of the Annette King "Law of Common Sense" that specifically restricts personal items of apparel designed to identify a political party to either the left or right sock.
Jeanette Fitzsimons - For using the planet earth in an election without permission from the copyright holder. A title search reveals that the copyright is owned by a Lord God, Heaven.
The Exclusive Brethren - for praying. Prayers advocating for a particular party are deemed third party advertising under the EFA. Helen Clark released a statement on this earlier.
Mike Williams - For campaigning for votes in Melbourne a week before the election when the electoral boundary for New Zealand clearly ends at Bondi Junction. It also appears he has spent over $12,000 in photocopying expenses and a book called "Handwriting Recognition for Dummies" which he failed to declare as an election expense.
John Key - for appearing on a televised leaders debate and talking policy without mentioning his home address at the end of every sentence.
John Keys - a mysterious doppelganger that some media commenters refer to, possibly the second person in a string of Labour Party Advertisements claim to have identified.
Any small children beaten to death - for promoting Green Party advertising that their death was caused by a "smack" and that the parents would be let off with the excuse the death was "reasonable force" required to "discipline" the child.
Related Link: A Hiding To Nothing on the EFA
The issue is that her face and voice is instantly familiar and is "more Labour than the Labour Party" according to the various Labour funded blog sites that infest the internet. Accordingly, the Commission has ruled each public appearance of Helen Clark counts as $2,000 towards their campaign spending limit, unless she wears a paper bag over her head.
Other politicians have also been warned of various Electoral Finance Act Breaches:
Winston Peters - for making misleading claims on policy - particularly using a Sign with the word "No", or any moving of the lips.
Dr Michael Cullen - may not approach within 5 metres of a dog turd as people will mistake it for his financial rescue package. Any person seeing a dog turd is to report such sightings to the Electoral Commission who will add $345.50 to Labour's election expenditure for advocating policy using instantly recognisable props.
Rodney Hide - For wearing a yellow jacket, in contravention of clause 569.234, a subsection of the Annette King "Law of Common Sense" that specifically restricts personal items of apparel designed to identify a political party to either the left or right sock.
Jeanette Fitzsimons - For using the planet earth in an election without permission from the copyright holder. A title search reveals that the copyright is owned by a Lord God, Heaven.
The Exclusive Brethren - for praying. Prayers advocating for a particular party are deemed third party advertising under the EFA. Helen Clark released a statement on this earlier.
Mike Williams - For campaigning for votes in Melbourne a week before the election when the electoral boundary for New Zealand clearly ends at Bondi Junction. It also appears he has spent over $12,000 in photocopying expenses and a book called "Handwriting Recognition for Dummies" which he failed to declare as an election expense.
John Key - for appearing on a televised leaders debate and talking policy without mentioning his home address at the end of every sentence.
John Keys - a mysterious doppelganger that some media commenters refer to, possibly the second person in a string of Labour Party Advertisements claim to have identified.
Any small children beaten to death - for promoting Green Party advertising that their death was caused by a "smack" and that the parents would be let off with the excuse the death was "reasonable force" required to "discipline" the child.
Related Link: A Hiding To Nothing on the EFA
Act leader Rodney Hide's canary-yellow jacket has fallen foul of the Electoral Finance Act. The Electoral Commission wrote to Mr Hide yesterday, saying that under the act the jacket might be an "election advertisement" and therefore required an authorising statement.Yes, I can see the problem. They need a name and address on the jacket so they can track down the owner of the jacket to see who he is. Labour makes laws that grow the nanny state. They rushed the EFB through, with inadequate consultation and now we pay public servants to investigate threats to democracy such as Rodney's jacket. Will this end up in court? This is disgusting. I'd suggest what people could do about this, but that would likely be deemed some sort of contravention against the EFA.
I have a spare paper bag I an willing to donate to the Labs.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with political satire is that perverse reality can out-strip the best imaginations.
ReplyDeleteThe yellow jacket is just too much! How did you think of that?
...oh, it's real?
I'm sure Helen will appreciate the offer CF. Providing it isn't the bag that holds replicas of Cullen's fiscal policy :-)
ReplyDeleteTrue Greg. A Labour supporter rang up talk back radio very outraged. He was convinced the yellow jacket story was a fabrication, presumably by some disgruntled National supporter to generate false information. His logic was irrefutable:
ReplyDelete"That's just a ridiculous story, and Labour's EFA is sensible, therefore it's all lies."
He's going to be just a wee bit surprised. I'm sure he'll be voting Labour anyway.
The real issue is the one I blogged about very early on in this process: Bad laws are those that allow the government to find many people guilty of something, and then they decide who they want to prosecute.
Labour and Greens have infringed their own bill many times, and it's not been 'in the public interest' to prosecute. Will they decide it is in the public interest to prosecute Rodney Hide?
The best observation I've heard today was on Laws' Radio Live show.
ReplyDeleteA caller noted,
"So we fail to ban gang-patches because that somehow offends 'human rights' but it's possible to prosecute a politician for wearing a party-coloured jacket?"
Brilliant. That leads to the satirical thought:
ReplyDelete"ACT declare themselves a political gang, complete with gang patch and slogan to avoid prosecution.
Roger Douglas scared the sh*t out of some Labour Voters just by wearing his patch in his electorate and now they refuse to come outside to vote.
Michael Laws vowed to make political gangs illegal in Wanganui, but could only shrug helplessly for the rest of the country.
"Whether Rodney wears a yellow jacket, Helen a red suit or Key blue underwear, we wont have that sort of carry-on here in Wanganui"