Editorial: It's still not a good look, Bill

There can be few sights more unedifying than that of a politician countering accusations of improper behaviour by claiming that his actions are consistent with the letter of the law.

The idea that someone is innocent unless and until he is demonstrably guilty quite properly carries weight in criminal proceedings but for those elected or appointed to high office, the rules are different. Their tenure being the result of electoral fortune, their tenability will always depend on public confidence. And public confidence, as Richard Worth can attest, relies on something more ineffable than precise legal niceties.

This inexorable logic applies to the situation in which Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bill English finds himself in respect of his housing arrangements. His boss, John Key, defended his besieged deputy this week, saying that English had "absolutely complied" with the legal test required for the accommodation allowances he had received. But that is a very long way from being the point.

Indeed that position was ignominiously surrendered by English himself when he repaid the difference between the $700 a week that Ministerial Services was paying to rent the house owned by his family trust and the $460 he had been claiming as an out-of-town MP: he did so, he said, because it was "not a good look". And that is the nub of this matter.

The situation, in brief, is this: MPs who do not live in Wellington are entitled to claim actual accommodation costs up to a maximum of $24,000 a year - about $500 a week. Ministers, who typically spend more nights in the capital, were reimbursed under a different formula, which included some utilities and cleaning and was costing more, although John Key changed the rules at the beginning of this month and trimmed the ministerial allowance to a lump sum of $37,500.

But English remained in a unique position: the $1.2 million Karori house, owned by the family's Endeavour Trust, in which he lives with his wife and six children, is deemed an official ministerial residence and leased back to the Crown. Until English, under pressure, changed the arrangements, this cost taxpayers - and, by any sensible assessment, benefited English - $47,000 a year.

If these arrangements complied with the letter of the law, English should explain why he changed them when the heat came on.

He also needs to explain the trust arrangements. He declared a "beneficial interest" in the trust last year and "no pecuniary interest" this year. What changed, and why? The inescapable suspicion lingers that he was arranging his affairs to maximise his entitlements. That may be legal, but in the middle of a recession when, as Finance Minister, he is calling for restraint in public expectations of state spending, it remains deeply questionable.

Making matters murkier, English defines himself as an out-of-town minister because the family has a home in Dipton, Southland, where he is enrolled as a voter. But his two voting-age children are enrolled in Wellington Central; the family has lived there since the mid-90s; his kids went or go to school there; and English's wife practises medicine there. If he does not know that legal definitions to satisfy expenses claims count for less in the public mind than what looks good, he should.

The Opposition hunt for English's scalp risks appearing motivated more by the desire to make political capital than ensure strict accountability: members of the Cabinet in the last Government were not above using the rules to their advantage. Yet there is something distinctly distasteful about the Prime Minister's response to Labour's demand for disclosure of the details of the Endeavour Trust. He warned Labour that such disclosure, demanded of every MP, "would be a very interesting road to go down", a threat that can only heighten, not allay, public suspicion.

The least that English owes the country now is that disclosure. He - and Key - should remember the odium that was heaped on British MPs over their often-grotesque claims and manipulation of the rules: all were within the letter of the law but the public was no less disgusted. As the man in charge of the public purse, English is subject to far higher expectations than strict legality. It is time he answered those expectations. The cost to his and the Government's credibility is already far too high.

* This article earlier incorrectly stated that Bill English's wife was enrolled in Wellington central.