Editorial: Tactic shows National in poor light

National is sending out leaflets in the name of its MPs, ostensibly to explain the Budget Finance Minister Bill English delivered last month. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The present Government is the last we would expect to be using public money for mail-outs of thinly disguised election material.

Complaints from National and Act against the previous government's excesses have left the country wary of this ruse. Public "information" qualifies for parliamentary funds as long as it does not expressly ask for a vote or a financial contribution, but it can contain party insignia and candidates' names and look exactly like an election pitch, which it is.

National is sending out leaflets in the name of its MPs, ostensibly to explain the Budget it delivered last month. Act's letter is arguing for youth rates of pay. Both are said to be anxious to spend their postal allocation before the financial year ends tomorrow because the rules governing the allocation require them to use it or lose it.

"Losing" it means saving it from taxpayers' point of view. It ill becomes the governing party to use the money for publicity about a Budget that stresses the need for control of expenditure. The annual Budget is exhaustively publicised at the time of its delivery; it hardly needs another explanation from the Government now. The sum National had left to spend could have been easily struck out if the party had no better use for it than this.

Act's purpose appears to be slightly better. The case for reinstating youth rates of pay is not being made in any other forum and it is brave to put a contentious proposition in election material.

It is another sign that Don Brash means to campaign on economic policy rather than the populist issues preferred by previous Act leaders. But could not a well-heeled party have paid for $50,000 of advertising itself?

None of this election-year splurge will be caught by the legal limit on parties' permitted spending, which covers the three months to election day. From August 26 the Parliamentary Service will be able to demand a refund for the sort of material that the Auditor-General ruled unlawful after the 2005 election. Seven parties claimed ignorance at that time of the distinction between information and electioneering and all but New Zealand First agreed to reimburse the public account.

The Labour Government responded to the Auditor-General's ruling with legislation that controlled all political advertising, funded publicly or privately, from the beginning of election year. Its Electoral Finance Act was lenient to parties, allowing them to use public funds for anything that did not expressly solicit money or votes, while restricting the amount others might spend on any issue that could influence the election.

Within months of taking office, National repealed the act and set about seeking a consensus of all parties on what should be permitted. Late last year a deal was done. National agreed to maintain a limit in private political advertising, albeit at a higher level than Labour had allowed, and Labour agreed to National's desired level of secrecy for donations to parties.

They also agreed that no party material would be financed by Parliament within three months of an election. So after August 26 this year, voters will no longer receive letters promoting the policies and concerns of a particular political party unless the party has paid for them. But until then, we have to put up with this pretence that blatant party propaganda is worthy of public finance because it stops short of asking outright for a vote.

The present Government has no need to indulge in this nonsense. It is not taking unpopular steps that need to be carefully explained. It can get sufficient attention at no public expense. It is sending voters a message that its methods are no better than those it once condemned.