National MP Paul Hutchison last night denied accusations he broke the law last month by distributing parliamentary taxpayer-funded literature on National at Otago University, at the same time as collecting party membership fees from students.
The accusation was made in Parliament yesterday by Labour's Pete Hodgson who saidhe saw the MP breaking the law.
Both MPs had been attending a clubs' day at Otago University.
Dr Hutchison is National's tertiary education spokesman and Mr Hodgson is the Dunedin North MP.
Dr Hutchison said Mr Hodgson was there too, holding taxpayer-funded Labour Party balloons with a parliamentary crest on them signifying they were taxpayer funded.
Mr Hodgson's accusation arose as he was responding on behalf of Justice Minister Annette King to questions about an apparent breach of the Electoral Finance Act by Labour general secretary Mike Smith who put the party's address on the authorisation of a party DVD, rather than his home address as required.
In what Mr Hodgson called a "tit for tat" answer, he said he had seen Dr Hutchison giving out parliamentary material "whilst as the same time collecting membership fees".
He did not believe Dr Hutchison knew he was breaking the law "but he was and I watched him doing it."
Mr Hodgson later said among the literature he saw being distributed was National's environment booklet "A Blue Green Vision for New Zealand".
He said the law that was broken was not the Electoral Finance Act but the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Act 2006.
"When you are using any parliamentary material or are incurring any costs against Parliamentary Service, the two rules that have always existed, even before the Auditor-General opined on life _ you were never allowed to ask anyone for their vote and you were never allowed to ask anyone for money."
Mr Hodgson said Labour had separated its two tables: he was stationed at one talking about politics and there was another table upstairs where members were being recruited. He confirmed the use of taxpayer-funded balloons with a Labour logo and website address on them.
Asked later if he thought they were a good use of taxpayers' money, he said: "I think it's okay. You can say a balloon is better or worse than a pamphlet but the whole point of me raising this issue is the minutiae around the law is such, that on the one hand people have to be careful; on the other hand people are just going to walk into trouble as I think Paul has."
