Courier Country, a monthly paper which is delivered free to rural mailboxes from North Otago to Mid Canterbury, arrived with yesterday’s mail.
Just like its stable mate The Courier about which I blogged last week it has an advertisement for Timaru Labour Government MPs under a Labour logo.
I think this is breaching the EFA because there are no Labour Government MPs. It is therefore an advertisement for Labour so needs to be authorised and its cost accounted for in the party’s election return.
If I am right, is it just the party which is breaching the EFA or are the paper and the website, also falling foul of the law?
Homepaddock 
hp: As reported last week, Tim Barnett is the Labour Party MP providing local constituency services in your area. You may not want to accept that to be the case, but that is what they are doing. That advertisement allows local people to find out how to contact the Labour MP(s) serving their area.
National does the same thing in Mana and Otaki electorates….at the very least.
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If the advertisment was for Tim Barnett as the shadow MP for Aoraki, or even Timaru (though why a shadow MP would want to service only the urban part of a large electorate escapes me) it would be okay. But it is not for him. If Cullen deleted the words “Labour-led Government” from Budget press releases to avoid contravening the Act then advertising Labour Government MPs also breaches it.
This may seem pedantic but this law really is an ass, Labour was warned about it, ignored the warnings and is now ignoring the law. Bad law is still the law and should be followed or changed, not arrogantly, or ignorantly, disregarded.
For the record Timaru isn’t my area – I’m in North Otago which is in Otago under existing boundaries and Waitaki with the new ones.
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