NZ POLITICS DAILY: Ministerial limos to be auctioned off

One of the issues that has dented the Government’s image most this year was its decision to upgrade the ministerial fleet of BMW limos. Although a fairly trivial and almost apolitical issue, the Labour opposition was able to impugn the Government’s austerity and fair reputation by throwing mud about the alleged bad decision to purchase the new limos.

Today the issue is revived with the news that the ‘old’ BMWs are about to be auctioned off – see TVNZ's Crown limos to be auctioned off.

Other issues of political finance and scandal are also raised by the Electoral Commission’s Referral of alleged breaches of the Electoral Act 1993 in which Charles Chauvel, the Act Party, and Labour are being investigated by the police. 

As I mentioned yesterday, allegations about political finance, corruption and scandal are now the key electoral weapon of modern New Zealand politics.

The political rhetoric about corruption, political funding, misuse of taxpayer funds, and personal political behavior are now one of the most salient forms of electioneering in what is now a permanent campaign. As with rhetoric around more perennial issues such as law and order, parties and politicians now trade heavily on claims, accusations and complaints relating to these issues.

Yet New Zealand politics has not traditionally been characterised by political finance, corruption and scandals. So why has this type of negative campaigning suddenly become so central to New Zealand politics?

Quite simply, problematic issues of political finance and political corruption have actually existed for a long time in New Zealand politics but have only recently become visible due to a variety of factors relating to the shift to a proportion representation electoral system, the breakdown of the party system and ‘cartel’, and ideological convergence in the party system.

Most significantly, the increasing visibility of apparent political finance and political corruption is due to the sudden propensity of political parties to use such allegations as a rhetorical weapon against opponents, creating an escalating battle over political integrity in which words such as ‘corrupt’ and ‘corruption’ are increasingly used.

I’ll be explaining all of this in a paper I’m giving at the Political Rhetoric conference being held at Parliament over the next couple of days (and blogging it in the near future). And, note, because I'll be at the conference all day tomorrow there will be no NZ Politics Daily sent out on Thursday.