Rodney Hide has been referred to the police for breaching the Electoral Finance Act by wearing his yellow jacket with the Act logo but without an authorisation.
If his jacket breached the EFA then why didn’t Metiria Turei’s bathing suit?:
I wrote a letter to the editor after seeing this in the ODT saying she was breaching the act by wearing a wetsuit emblazoned with the Green logo without authorisation. She wrote a letter back saying she wasn’t so I emailed the Electoral Commission to ask which of us was correct.
The initial reply said:
You suggest that a party logo by itself constitutes an election advertisement.
An party advertisement is
‘any form of words or graphics or both that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging or persuading voters to do either or both of the following:
(a) to vote for the party (whether or not the name of the party is stated):
(b) not to vote for another party (whether or not the name of the party is stated)’
It is not clear to me that a party logo, by itself, meets this definition.
When I saw a news item saying the commission was considering whether a balloon with a Labour Party logo constituted an advertisement I emailed back suggesting that if a logo on a balloon was going to count then a logo on a wetsuit must too, especially when the story beside the photo included this quote:
“ Mrs Turie said …. She chose not to compete in a wetsuit, preferring a swimsuit emblazoned with the Green Logo. “It’s always good to get your message out there.” …. She said competing not only helped her promote the Green message throughout the country…”
In light of the new development I will email again.
Homepaddock 
Good on you HP. Anything we can do to help – supporting emails perhaps. Just give us the email address and any reference you have.
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[…] The yellow jacket was a brilliant piece of advertising. Homepaddock has an excellent article showing the double standard in this country: a bathing suit with a Green logo is fine, a jacket […]
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I think this bit in the pdf file you linked to is key.
“Other matters that might bring such items within the definition of an election advertisement include the addition of persuasive content which lack an information base, such as party election slogans or self promotion.”
That’s the main difference between the swimsuit and the jacket. The jacket had a slogan, the swimsuit didn’t.
It also seems that if Hide had put the authorisation statement on the outside of the jacket rather than concealing it (and showing it to anyone on the outside) then there would be no problem.
Plus because the jacket got significant media attention, then it seems to fulfil the “public interest” requirement the commission has before it passes on info to the police. I guess the swimsuit didn’t get significant enough attention.
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I guess it comes down to: nobody in her own party was quite stupid enough to dob her in, unlike those in Mr Hide’s party.
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PDM – the email address for the Electoral Commission is: info@elections.govt.nz
Lundegaard: But she is quoted as saying she’s using the suit to get the Green Party message out.
PM – I agree that it was silly of someone in Act to complain but who complains is irrelevant – if a logo on a jacket breaches the act, why not on another piece of clothing?
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S68 (1) of the EFA says that no payment must be made to any elector on the account of the exhibition of any election advertisement. Yet Rodney Hide paid for this jacket as an election advertisement according to the Electoral Commission, and according to S68(2) of the EFA, this means both Hide and the person who received payment for making Hide this election advertisement could be guilty of an illegal practice due to the payment made.
Oops. The Electoral Commission missed that one. Does that mean the the maker of Metiria Turei’s swimsuit should also be guilty of an illegal practice?
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if a logo on a jacket breaches the act..
The decision actually said that the jacket breached the act. Not the logo on the jacket.
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I don’t think who complains is irrelevant. We have a situation where the dumbass Labour govt yet again created stupid, incomprehensible legislation that they’ve left enforcement authorities, rather than the courts, to interpret. The dumbasses at fault have been appropriately punished. However, that still leaves the unfortunate enforcement authority (the Electoral Commission) with a mess to clean up. And that enforcement authority’s word is, essentially, law.
On that basis, wankers who want to increase the mess the authority has to clean up by making ridiculous complaints to score a political point are pointlessly annoying people whose word is law. That’s a risky business, and the wankers involved needn’t complain when the authority decides to give them a kicking. In this respect, ACT have bought themselves a kicking and the Greens haven’t.
The way forward is, of course, to fix the stupid legislation, not to try and aggravate the Electoral Commission even further.
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PM – fair comment, but the EC said months ago it was determining if logos counted as advertisements or not so asking for the answer shouldn’t cause undue aggravation.
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“are pointlessly annoying people whose word is law. ”
That’s not a fair point, unless it’s okay for people whose word is law to act upon their annoyance.
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The EC’s reasoning does appear to be rather convoluted (in addition to being inconsistent).
I look forward to their response to my query on Rodney’s opponent’s election campaign T-Shirts.
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That’s not a fair point, unless it’s okay for people whose word is law to act upon their annoyance.
It’s not fair, but it’s accurate. As I said, the answer is to fix the law – and preferably, not to pass any new laws that leave it up to the cops, or some quango, to decide who’s in breach of the law and who isn’t.
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pm – as we now have sane people in charge of the asylum laws should be better over the next 3 years at least.
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