Matthew Hooton and Keeping Stock have rightly highlighted the hypocricy of Labour evading the Electoral Finance Act and the need to spend their own money with their deliveries of this tax payer funded brochure.
The Herald had a story on this a couple of weeks ago which said:
Chief Electoral Officer Robert Peden said he had assessed the booklet, and “it does not contain words or graphics that could be reasonably regarded as encouraging or persuading voters to vote, or not to vote, for a candidate”.
Mr Peden said it was part of each MP’s “constituency function” rather than his or her candidacy in the upcoming election.
The rest of us may find that difficult to understand because at any time such things are profile raisers for MPs, this close to the election its political intent increases and the name and photo of an MP looks like words and graphics.
Kiwiblog says this sort of thing should be banned for 90 days before an election. I agree, although the impact of this particular mail-out on Labour’s vote may not be positive.
A friend got a letter from her MP with the brochure which started by talking about older people.
She has only just turned 56 so was affronted at the suggestion she was in need of such advice and said that the combination of wasting tax payers’ money and the insult over her age were two good reasons to vote for neither the party nor its candidate.
Homepaddock 
Leaving aside whether such material should be permitted or not, it’s doubtful that the ‘information packs’ will take many votes from National. They are far more likely to eat into NZ First support, which can only be a good thing.
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