Labour MPs front up over election expenses

At least three Labour MPs have declared that the taxpayer footed some of their official election expenses - and the Labour Party's return also lists about $74,000 of public money for its Budget leaflet.

In their recently released candidate returns, Labour leader Phil Goff, MP Lynne Pillay and former MP Judith Tizard declared election expenses that were publicly funded - including newsletters to their constituents and $3737 for paintwork on Mr Goff's electorate car.

There is no requirement to identify which material is funded out of the public purse in election returns and many MPs did not.

A spokesman for Mr Goff said he had included the two items to be "doubly sure" that his return was exhaustive. As well as the car, he listed $1724 for a "constituent report". He would not pay back the amounts because he believed both items were legitimate constituency spending, rather than electioneering.

Ms Tizard and Ms Pillay also declared about $1400 each for newsletters sent out to constituents as election expenses.

Geoff Thorn, the general manager of Parliamentary Services, said his department could pay only for MPs' publicity that did not explicitly seek votes, donations, or party membership.

He was confident "in all cases" that the material paid for had met the criteria. However, because of a different threshold in the Electoral Finance Act MPs had also included some as election expenses "as a matter of caution.

This is a matter that is unlikely to be repeated in the future due to the repeal of the Electoral Finance Act". While it is difficult to identify which material was publicly funded in the Labour Party's return, it lists $73,845 for its Budget

leaflet last year. The leaflet was funded out of Helen Clark's parliamentary budget as Labour leader, but carried the authorisation statement required for election advertisements.

Only the Green Party has clearly separated out the publicly funded advertising in its election return, listing about $187,000 worth, much of which it said was included as a precaution.

Meanwhile, the mystery of $3000 donations to several National MPs from "Toorak Chambers" has been cleared up. Toorak Chambers is an incorporated society which owns a building in Hamilton.

The "donations" were effectively a dividend from profits to the members - National's central North Island electorate branches.