Please let us pay GST, say Nats

The National Party is in the unusual position of wanting to pay its GST bill, but not being allowed to.

The Maori Party, Greens and New Zealand First all oppose a bid for a one-off law change which would allow the $112,000 in GST - owed on election advertising - to be paid.

The money is owed to TVNZ, TV3, Prime, Sky and radio stations.

NZ First leader Winston Peters said: "National's claim that they cannot pay those they owe money, because they would then breach the Broadcasting Act, does not stack up.

"They have already committed the offence and if they truly accept the mantra of 'one law for all', then they would do the honourable thing and pay those they owe money.

"Then rather than trying to hide from the law through retrospective legislation, they would also have the courage to front up and face the penalty for violating the Broadcasting Act."

National has said it will today seek the permission of Parliament to get its bill onto the agenda. That permission can be blocked by a single negative vote.

Labour said it would not block the bill, but a Maori Party spokeswoman today said its MPs were almost certain to veto the move.

The election allocation was overspent following a mix-up with an advertising agency, which spent National's allocated $900,000 without considering GST.

The Maori Party spokeswoman said its MPs were yet to see the bill and felt they had not had time to consider it.

They also felt the bill had been designed to purely benefit one party and would not benefit Parliament as a whole.

They felt it should go through Parliament's due process rather than getting special consideration.

The bill will be discussed again at the party's caucus meeting today.

Metiria Turei for the Green Party said: "This bill would effectively allow the National Party to get off scot-free for spending more than they were allocated during the election campaign. The Green Party doesn't think this is OK."

Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday said her caucus had discussed the situation, and Labour was not going to block the bill.

"Agencies are waiting to be paid, and they can't paid without this legislation being passed," she said.

The Green Party also has a problem with the bill, and could stop it being introduced.

It wants the $112,000 docked from National's advertising amount at the next election.

That would cause another problem, because the criteria on which the allocations are worked out are also part of electoral law.

- NZPA, HERALD ONLINE STAFF