All parties get broadcasting cash even if they don’t want it

THE DOMINION POST: Six tiny parties that have yet to register and one that does not want the money anyway have been given more than $17,000 to run television and radio advertisements during the election.

The six are among 11 fringe parties each awarded $10,000 to buy advertising slots, a production package worth more than $7000 and one minute of air time in the three-yearly carve-up of funds for broadcast campaigns.

Labour and National will each receive $1 million, the lion's share of the $3.2 million on offer, after each argued before the Electoral Commission that they should get the same amount.

There was a furore in 2005 after Labour was awarded $200,000 more than National, but the commission said in this year's ruling that the parties were now much closer together.

The Greens, Maori Party and NZ First get $240,000 each and ACT, the Progressives and UnitedFuture $100,000 each.

The commission allocates the funding according to the number of votes parties won at the last election, the number of MPs they have and other factors such as polls.

However, it said it had decided to ensure that all parties that applied for funding this year received something. The bigger parties were losing some of their potential allocations to subsidise smaller ones to ensure that the distribution would be fair.

The 11 parties that received the minimum package were: Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, Democrats for Social Credit, the Libertarianz, the Alliance, the Family Party, Kotahitanga Te Manamotu Hake Tiriti o Waitangi, New World Order, New Zealand Liberals, Residents Action Movement, South Island Party and the Workers Party of New Zealand.

The last six of these have yet to register with the commission and the Libertarianz has said it will not take the cash because it opposes state funding of political parties.

A commission spokesman said the six parties would have to register and submit party lists with the deadline before they could get the funding. If they did not, it would most likely be redistributed to other small parties.