EFA.REPEAL

Electoral Finance Act to be repealed by 1 May 2009

I would have thought the government had for more important things to worry about at the moment than the EFA as the next election is not until 2011 and yes, this will be a full term government.

I think it was an election promise to get rid of it quickly post-election, so taking their time over it is probably a bit more politically costly than usual. Also, coming up with a consensus around replacement will take plenty of time.

The worldwide financial problems weren't looking anywhere near as bad at election time so I stand firmly by my claim that "I would have thought the government had for more important things to worry about at the moment than the EFA".

I worry about repeal versus change by amendment....

Amendment only was a concern of mine as well. Does anybody know the dates that parliament sits to discuss such changes?

It looks to me like there is big money to be made off this stock at the moment. The National Party has announced that its "repeal" of the EFA will not extend to the provisions of that Act dealing with donations. Although the Government could, conceivably, repeal the entire Act and then re-enact certain provisions of it, this would be a very strange drafting technique. Indeed I have never seen this done before, which is not surprising, given it would serve no real purpose.

Therefore it seems to me that while most of the EFA's sections will be repealed, the Act as a whole will remain in force to a very limited extent. And, on the contract definition (and legally speaking), this would technically be an amendment, not a repeal.

My thoughts exactly

I don't have any cash to spend on this stock, so I thought I'd share what I know.

National will repeal the EFA completely and amend the Electoral Act to put the donation regimes into that original legislation.

I guess it's up to you guys whether you believe me or not!

They're debating a repeal act...can't see it getting much clearer than that...

yeah, well its publicly obvious now.

but they hadn't released the bill to the public until they started debating it, so it was still technically possible that they would heavily amend it.

Yup. That's why I stayed out.

Does anyone have a link to the bill?

For those not watching, Gerry Brownlee just announced National's intention to introduce a bill to amend the Electoral Act next Tuesday.

I believe the EFA Repeal bill has already been introduced, or will be after question.

I missed the debate and I can't find a copy of the bill online, but this stub mentions "repeal[ing] the Electoral Finance Act 2007".

[www.parliament.nz]

That's despite this link mentioning National's plan to pass "...a Government Bill aimed at repealing much of the controversial Electoral Finance Act" and a regime "which retains donations provisions of the old Electoral Finance Act".

[tvnz.co.nz]

I'm still short (but only 60 at .98!) given the slight possibility that this might all topple over. Very unlikely though.

as i said above, they're repealing the EFA and ammending the Electoral Act to put the donations stuff into there.

Peter, I think you're right. (My parliamentary sources tell me the same thing.) It is very annoying, however, that the text of the Bill hasn't been put up on Parliament's website. You'd think urgency should extend to notifying the public of the text of the Bill that's being rushed through!

As an aside, I stand by my point that it is very unusual drafting technique to repeal provisions in one statute and then amend another statute to add the exact same provisions in. I have never come across it before, which is not surprising given there is no good reason to do things that way. I guess the political symbolism behind repealing the entire EFA is going to win out over common sense!

"I guess the political symbolism behind repealing the entire EFA is going to win out over common sense! "

Political symbolism versus common sense has been the trouble with everything to do with this Act all along!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2009 12:32PM by netr.

i think part of it is symbolism,

but also i think that given that the donations section is the only part they are leaving in, i think they probably wanted to simplify electoral law too.

why have two laws when you can have one?

Shouldn't this stock expire at 1 now?

Yep - its been repealed so why is it still hanging around?

Well there are two logical possibilites:

I'm concerned the admins might have been taken hostage by a large rodent, or they're partying for three weeks straight....

Hmm... now how to make that a bundle stock....

Perhaps waiting for gov general to sign off? Matt: what's up?

Closed now, folks, sorry about the delay.