[political finance] Bulk funding of parties - a bad idea

Following the scandal over the misuse of parliamentary funding, it beggars belief that he Parliamentary Service officials have put forward proposals to increase the parliamentary parties control over their use of taxpayer resources. One of three options presented in a confidential report by the Parliamentary Service (ie parliamentary officials) to the Parliamentary Services Commission (ie the political parties), was to bulk fund the parties in parliament. All the moves in the direction of bulk-funding are essentially attempts to convert indirect state funding into direct state funding, albeit bringing in a new funding regime through the backdoor. Converting parliamentary resource allocations into cash resources that have few restrictions on their use would allow the recipients much greater freedom in how they utilise the resources. Inevitably, MPs would use such cash resources in an even more party-political way than they currently do. Furthermore, the parliamentary wings of the parties would be likely to centralise these resources even further. As an example, the Act party have long advocated simply allocating each party leader $500,000 for each of their MPs and letting them spend it however they like. I hardly think that any move in this direction is likely to have public support.