John Armstrong: High horse not safe place to be

Don Brash used "self-serving" and "cynical" - he had the derogatory adjectives to hand as legislation validating unlawful election spending was rushed into Parliament under urgency yesterday.

The National leader's criticism of Labour could equally sum up his party's stance on the retrospective measure. As much as Labour is desperate to put a lid on the furore, National seeks to milk every last drop of advantage before the issue fades, if only temporarily.

In opposing the bill - which was deemed necessary to remedy the unlawfulness of the spending of public money on political advertising at the last election - National has ignored Treasury advice and put politics first.

National's stance is contradictory. Having accused Labour of theft of public money, National bizarrely opposes a measure which will put the Crown accounts back in order.

Equally unseemly is the haste with which Labour is driving the bill through Parliament without select committee scrutiny.

The speed, which is in notable contrast to next July's deadline for Labour and other parties to pay back the money they now owe, is all about "moving on", to use the Prime Minister's lexicon, while saving further embarrassment by effectively pulling the rug from under the High Court case on the legality of the spending on Labour's pledge card.

Publicly, the Government argues quick action was required because Auditor-General Kevin Brady had opened a Pandora's box in which money spent on the most basic of MPs' resources, such as free travel and phone calls, might be deemed to be electioneering and therefore misappropriated.

But Mr Brady's report did not treat this potentiality as something requiring immediate attention.

Despite that, temporary rules have been inserted in the legislation to ensure money can still be lawfully used for "parliamentary purposes".

Rushed law has a habit of turning out to be bad law. As National was quick to argue, the temporary rules amazingly could still allow the infamous pledge card - the source of the whole mess - to be approved as acceptable publicity paid for by the taxpayer because it did not "explicitly" seek votes.

Such definitions will expire at the end of next year by which time the parties in Parliament will have hammered out a lasting set of rules as to what is "electioneering".

Yet the temporary definitions will apply for 14 months - reason enough for select committee examination.

Allowing such scrutiny would depart from the secrecy surrounding the writing of rules by politicians for politicians - typified yesterday by National's being refused access to the advice parliamentary officials provided on the bill.

National justifies its opposition on the lack of any clause in the bill obliging other parties to repay the varying sums they spent unlawfully.

This had the whiff of opposition for Opposition's sake. Any party that fails to "pay the money back" - all have made that commitment although NZ First is still quibbling - knows it will be making a political death wish. The public's sanction is sufficient.

Having paid its minimal bill, National climbed on its high horse. Having trampled Labour's credibility into the dust, National is understandably reluctant to climb off.

National is also not going to sit back and watch Labour try to recover some kudos with the public.

But once Labour said it would cover its $825,000-worth of unlawful spending, the steam went out of the issue.

The danger for National is that, if it cannot let go, staying on its high horse will see it end up flogging a dead one.