KEY POINTS:
The Board of New Zealand First met last night to discuss the rejection by Starship hospital of the $158,000 it donated in lieu of repaying Parliamentary Service the money.
It is the amount the Auditor-General found New Zealand First had unlawfully spent of taxpayers' money in the 2005 election, from a total of $1.2 million that parliamentary parties spent unlawfully on electioneering.
The biggest item of unlawful expenditure was more than $400,000 on Labour's pledge card, which pushed its total unlawful expenditure to $824,524.
New Zealand First was averse to giving the money back to Parliament because it believed it could look like an admission of wrong-doing, and the party does not accept the Auditor-General's findings.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said she empathised with Winston Peters over the Auditor-General's findings but would not offer a view as to whether the money belonged to the taxpayer.
