KEY POINTS:
Little can be done about National's questionable election spending, highlighted in Nicky Hager's new book, because of validating legislation passed in Parliament this year.
The Hollow Men has exposed third-party campaigning for National by the horse racing lobby, which Hager said was unlawful.
Thousands of National Party postcards bearing the parliamentary crest - signalling they were paid for with taxpayers' money - were dispersed at a Hawkes Bay Racing Club meeting less than a month before last year's election.
Hager claimed the National leader's office budget and staff were used to design the advertisements.
Labour Party president Mike Williams yesterday said the racing items clearly should have been declared as an election expense by National, but they weren't.
"The Auditor-General will have to go back and have another look at that, I would imagine," Mr Williams said.
However, that is unlikely because such items appear to have been validated by controversial legislation passed under urgency in Parliament last month.
Ironically, National strongly criticised the legislation, accusing Labour of being corrupt for using taxpayer money on its pledge card.
Asked about the effect of the legislation, Mr Williams conceded there probably wasn't much anyone could do about the National spending.
National said yesterday that the appearance of the crest on the racing items was a mistake.
Outgoing party leader Don Brash said he had checked and discovered that the items were in fact "paid for by the party".
Labour is still exploring Hager's book to see if it can take action on the allegations it contains.
Mr Williams said one area being looked at stemmed from a Labour complaint to the Chief Electoral Officer that Exclusive Brethren pamphlets should have been attributable to National. He said that during that process, National's Steven Joyce wrote to the office "saying they knew nothing about it".
"The book clearly demonstrates that that letter was untrue," Mr Williams said.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Mark Burton's work on potentially sweeping changes to election campaign financing rules is progressing.
Options are set to go to Cabinet before Christmas.
Greens co-leader Russel Norman yesterday called for incoming National leader John Key to back transparent campaign financing.
"If Key won't commit to transparent campaign financing then we should all be asking what he's afraid of, and what's to stop all this happening again in 2008," Dr Norman said.
