KEY POINTS:
All parliamentary parties have refused a request by the Electoral Commission to revise their statutory election expenses after the Auditor-General's report last year on election spending.
Chief executive Helen Catt revealed only yesterday that the Electoral Commission last year wrote to all parliamentary parties after the Auditor-General's finding that $1.2 million of parliamentary funding was deemed to have been spent electioneering.
The commission also released a Crown Law opinion stating that the use of trusts to channel "anonymous donations" to political parties was legal even when party officials knew the identities of those making the donations. The opinion was sought after a Green Party complaint following the publication of Nicky Hager's book The Hollow Men.
"In any case, the six month period in which prosecutions could begin after any possible offence had long expired before publication," she said.
The Electoral Commission is the body to which political parties must tender expenses. The commission does not determine whether expenditure is lawful but if a declaration exceeds the party's statutory limit it refers the matter to the police.
Before the Auditor-General's investigation, the Labour Party declared its pledge card spending on its return, on advice of the Chief Electoral Officer, which pushed it over Labour's limit. The Electoral Commission referred the declaration to the police but no action was taken. That is likely to be an exception. Most parties will not have declared the parliamentary spending because they never considered it election spending in the first place.
The Auditor-General said it was, and the Electoral Commission asked them to revise their returns "in order to provide a complete public record".
If parties had revised their declarations - and gone over their limit - there is nothing the commission could have done because action has to be taken within six months of an election.
The letter was sent to all parliamentary parties except the Progressives which was found to have spent no parliamentary funds on electioneering. National, Labour and Act are the only ones who have replied and all declined to do so.
