KEY POINTS:
The National Party is taking the Electoral Commission and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union to court to try to have the union blocked from listing as a third party during the election.
In separate proceedings, next week National will also file proceedings questioning the Electoral Commission's reasoning for not referring the Labour Party to the police after it became the first to breach its new election advertising law.
In the first action, the National Party has filed papers in the High Court seeking a review of the commission's decision to allow the EPMU to become a third party. The union listing was stalled by an objection that it was too closely involved with the Labour Party's administration to qualify as one.
However, the Electoral Commission said that while the act prevented persons who were involved in the administration of a party from becoming third parties, that applied only to individuals rather than organisations or bodies.
The union has already been silenced by the objection for the past three months and on Monday National will also seek an interim ruling to prevent the union becoming a third party until the court case is heard.
National deputy leader Bill English said allowing groups so closely entwined with a political party effectively to be third parties effectively let them run "separate attack campaigns" for that party without their spending having to be included in the party's election cap.
Last night, EPMU national secretary Andrew Little said he suspected National's strategy was to tie up the union with the costs of a legal case. He said National would also need to explain to taxpayers why it was going to tie up the Electoral Commission in expensive High Court litigation.
The Electoral Commission confirmed it had been served papers.
National will also seek a clear definition of a provision that exempts from election spending rules any advertising politicians do in their capacity as members of Parliament.
