Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
David Cunliffe
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DPF
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Labour Party
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Russel Norman
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Taxpayer funding
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The Greens
Please excuse our little rant in the title line. But this story, to which we alluded earlier, is causing our blood to boil; Newstalk ZB reports:
David Cunliffe believes it's time to consider publicly-funded elections.
It comes in the wake of revelations about National's Cabinet Club and fundraising practices by all parties.
The Labour leader says it's time to have a conversation.
"There's a trade off to be made between investing more taxpayers funding in the political process to guarantee fairness and democracy on the one hand and making sure that every dollar is well and prudently spent."
Now it's official. The Labour Party is broke, and they want the taxpayer to bail them and their Green Party mates out.
We are hot under the collar on this. We already pay our fair share of tax (and probably more than most, by the time our contribution is added to SWMBO's), and we simply do not want any more of our tax dollars being spent on political parties of any hue. We are completely and utterly opposed to the idea.
So is DPF; he blogs:
I’m 100% opposed. For a start taxpayer funding political parties does not reduce private donations - look at Australia where they have state funding – and you have unions donate tens of millions of dollars to Labour.It is healthy for political parties to need members and supporters to raise funds. It’s a good thing that if a party loses say 75% of its members, it loses a lot of its funding.Most of all it is wrong to force taxpayers to fund political parties whose policies and candidates they may detest.But you have been warned. If the opposition get into power, beyond doubt they’ll try to legislate for taxpayer funding of political parties.
We could not agree more with DPF. This will be the thin end of the wedge, and you can be sure that any left-leaning government will extort as much as they can from taxpayers, whilst ramping up taxes on those who dare to earn more than average. Those at the top of the tree will end up funding political parties whose ideology they are fundamentally opposed to. That simply isn't right.
So good luck Mr Cunliffe and Mr Norman; go ahead and make this election about taxpayer funding of political parties, then tell us in advance about your plans to increase the top tax rate.
As for Mr Cunliffe, we're happy to have the "conversation" with him. He wants to squeeze our after-tax income down to pay for political parties, and our response is both simple and emphatic.
No. Bloody. Way.
