Hide sure campaign spending within limit

Rodney Hide

As recriminations begin over National losing the prized Epsom seat to Act, the electorate's new MP, Rodney Hide, is confident he stayed within election spending limits.

Mr Hide said last night that he was well aware of the $20,000 limit on spending for electorate candidates and he stuck to the rules to ensure no one "took a whack" at him.

No complaint has been laid with the Chief Electoral Office about spending in Epsom.

But political sources the Herald spoke to yesterday said rough calculations were being done on Mr Hide's spending, indicating a level of concern about overspending.

A breach of the Electoral Act's stringent rules on election expenses could be referred to the police.

If a prosecution was successful, Mr Hide would lose the seat and Act would also lose its only other MP, Heather Roy.

"We know the rules well and we followed them," Mr Hide said. "We're fine. I'm sure there's people coming up with excuses."

The Act Party leader was a surprise and comfortable winner of Epsom, beating incumbent National MP Richard Worth by more than 3000 votes.

His advertising persuaded sufficient National voters to split their two votes and support him, despite National Party president Judy Kirk telling Epsom people that such tactical voting was of no help to it.

Mr Hide's win ensured the survival of Act, which needed Epsom to stay in Parliament because it secured just 1.5 per cent of the party vote.

But some National members are fuming at the loss of the seat, with Epsom the financial and organisational centre for the party in the critical city of Auckland.

On election night Epsom returned 18,537 party votes for National, its best performance in any electorate.

Copping some of the blame for the loss is party leader Don Brash for what critics suggest were ambiguities in his messages to Epsom voters and his failure to rule out any desire for Mr Hide to win the seat.