KEY POINTS:
The Electoral Commission made two "crucial" errors in its decision to allow the country's largest union to register as a third party under the Electoral Finance Act, a lawyer for the National Party told the High Court today.
National last month lodged an application for a judicial review of the Electoral Commission's decision to register the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) as a third party, paving the way for it to spend up to $120,000 campaigning at the election.
It was the second time National had appealed a decision by the commission to list the Labour-affiliated union as a third party.
The Act prohibits those involved in the administration of the affairs of a party from registering.
National has argued the EPMU's rights to appoint some members to sit on Labour's policy, regional and national councils amounts to such, but the commission disagreed.
National's counsel Peter Kiely today argued the commission, in its latest decision, had been overly restrictive in its definition of "administration" and had also failed to take into account the EPMU's rules.
He said administration should not only mean the menial tasks of running a party, but should be applied in a wider sense.
A clear analogy could be drawn between the EPMU's national secretary Andrew Little's role on Labour's national council and the role of a director in a company - something that would normally be considered as part of its administration.
The commission had also failed to consider the union's rules which stated Mr Little was bound to follow decisions made at the union's conference or by its executive, effectively meaning they could direct how he behaved on Labour's council.
But the commission's counsel Peter Gunn said previous decisions in the case had directed the commission to only consider Labour's rules in deciding whether the union was part of the party's administration.
They suggested it was not.
He said National was looking for the court to substitute the commission's decision for one that favoured them, but the court could only re-order the commission to reconsider its decision.
Historically the commission had been given considerable leeway to interpret the law.
The EPMU, which was named as the second defendant in the case, did not appear in court today, saying it was not going to waste more energy in a time-consuming legal battle.
Mr Little has said the EPMU will run an advertising campaign in the lead up to the election regardless of any decisions regarding its third party status.
- NZPA
