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Electoral $$ for Destiny, National Front

Mon 18 Apr 2005 In: New Zealand Daily News

Destiny New Zealand, the National Front and Christian Heritage NZ have been allocated around $70,000 worth of taxpayer funds to seed their advertising and television campaigns in this year's general election. Destiny NZ, the political wing of the anti-gay Destiny Church, have been given $20,000 for advertising, and have also been granted a one-minute television address, which includes access to a production package from TVNZ to produce it worth over $7,000. The party was first registered in June 2003, with members initally drawn from the Destiny Church in Auckland, Newstalk ZB reported at the time. Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki said in August last year that the party would “definitely” be looking at repealing homosexual law reform, which would criminalise gay sex. Christian Heritage NZ, the former party of convicted child molester Graham Capill, also received $20,000 and a TVNZ production package on a par with Destiny. $10,000 worth of advertising funds and a similar production package went to the anti-Semitic National Front, whose supporters were present at both the “Enough is Enough” and “Defend the Legacy” marches, chiefly organised and run by Destiny Church in Wellington and Auckland. The NZ Association of Rationalists and Humanists have labelled the funding for Destiny as “state-supported hatred”. “I bet the Nazis didn't get their torch-lit parades subsidised by the Weimar Republic taxpayer,” says secretary Paul Litterick. “Gays should be asking how the tax on their pink dollars is being spent." Litterick says Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki "once again has us paying for his publicity and wealth-creation. Haven't we paid enough already? His church is a nice little tax-free earner as it is. Now we have to subsidise his bogus party as well." In its public report on the allocations, the Electoral Commission states it "must have regard to a series of criteria which cover results of the last election as well as consideration of more recent measures of parties' public support. It also requires that eligible parties be provided a fair opportunity to convey their policies to the public." However, it acknowledges that the allocations are "not an exact arithmetic reflection of share of votes, seats, membership or support in opinion polls."    

Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff

First published: Monday, 18th April 2005 - 12:00pm

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