KEY POINTS:
National MPs have scuppered a proposed law change to strengthen the Auditor-General's powers to investigate MPs' lists of assets and interests.
The change would have given the Auditor-General a broad range of powers and a legislative role to check MPs' declarations to the Register of Pecuniary Interests.
While the Auditor-General already reviews the register and can establish inquiries into individual MPs, those powers are confined to the Standing Orders - the rules of Parliament - rather than specified in legislation.
There is no list of specific investigative powers he can use in any inquiry, and the law change would have allowed him to require people to give evidence, to require them to break any confidentiality or secrecy obligations to others, and to enter properties to search evidence.
National MPs said the change should not be included in the Statutes Amendment Bill - a round-up of small law changes that must be minor and non-controversial and have the consent of all members of Parliament.
National associate justice spokesman Richard Worth said Parliament's rules already safeguarded the register by allowing independent scrutiny, and the change was unnecessary.
He said the law change would widen the Auditor-General's powers so he could "bust down doors and enter properties to search".
He said such matters should be able to be debated and scrutinised, rather than slipped through in a cover-all bill.
The minister in charge of the bill, Clayton Cosgrove, said National had previously supported the change.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen's office said all MPs, including National's, had agreed to the amendment when they were canvassed prior to the omnibus bill being introduced.
