Lazy coppers letting dodgy politicians get away with murder

In TRUTH‘s January 3 issue I wrote about the outrage of the failure of Police (full article online) to even investigate electoral law breaches.

Police are sitting on more than twenty open investigations referred to them for prosecution under the Electoral Act by the Electoral Commission.

Truth has obtained details under the Official Information Act that reveal Police seem to have no interest in prosecuting offences and breaches of the Electoral Act.

Of the 32 cases referred, 6 have lapsed because the prosecution time limit has expired.

62 dual vote referrals remain open and un-prosecuted.

Headline cases referred by the Electoral Commission that remain open with little or no progress are the Green party worker Jolyon White’s alleged vandalism of National’s signs at the 2011 election, several of Labour’s flyers including their ‘Stop Asset Sales’, ‘Prices are Rising faster than wages’ and ‘Ohariu Census’ pamphlets.

Only 3 cases have been closed, with no action or prosecution resulting.

Now Radio Live and Radio New Zealand are reporting the story like they actually went to the bother of using the OIA to obtain the figures and details. 

Labour are shamelessly calling for the issue to be sorted which a bit rich considering they are named in most of the breaches.

TRUTH believes Edgeler is on the money, for minor offences substantial fines against political parties and individuals that break Electoral Law need to be instant and issued by the Electoral Commission, for larger breaches like Labour’sc2005 pledge card rort an Independent Commission Against Corruption needs to be established, not unlike Australia has.

To continue with blatant and repeated breaches remaining unpunished encourages political corruption, we need to maintain our top position in the
Transperency International corruption rankings as the least corrupt nation in the world. Enforcing the law would go a long way to achieving this.

Nice to see other media trailing TRUTH. Remember if you want to read it first buy TRUTH each week.

Police OIA Response to Electoral Law Breaches from 2011 Election by NZTruth