The NZ Herald editorial today is dedicated to the subject of Owen Glenn, the largest individual donor to the New Zealand Labour Party ($500,000 at the last election). The Herald suggests that Glenn is most deserving of his New Year Honour -
"He thoroughly deserves one of our highest national honours, not for his political contribution alone but not least for it either. Our politics would be very much poorer in every sense if wealthy people were not encouraged to contribute to the cause of good government and parties were to become entirely state financed.
Mr Glenn doubly deserves his honour because he appears to have made no secret of his contribution. He let his name be known and said he expected nothing in return. Nothing, it goes without saying, except sound public policy and sensible, responsible government."
The Herald also makes some comments on the state of our political parties -
"...Political parties have ceased to be the mass-membership organisations they were 40 years ago and have come to rely increasingly on state funding through parliamentary allocations for research, communications, electorate office staffing and free broadcast advertising in election campaigns.
The trend will be strengthened by the bill passed late last year to validate the use of parliamentary communications money for electioneering and by the restriction of private political advertising under the Electoral Finance Act that comes into force today. The combined effect will be to increase the advantage of incumbent parties in Parliament and discourage outsiders from participating in election debate."
