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Labour and National are in a Mexican stand-off over a bill that will allow campaign advertisements to show a work address instead of a home address.
A members' bill by Bill English will allow officials of political parties and candidates to use a business or party headquarters address
on campaign material rather than their home address.
The bill - which will amend the Electoral Finance Act - is unlikely to pass before the election unless it is fast-tracked.
However, despite Labour agreeing to Mr English introducing the bill in March and indicating it would work to speed its progress, the two parties are in a stalemate over it.
Justice Minister Annette King offered ministry technical advice on the bill, but said she had not heard back from Mr English since that was delivered on March 28.
"We are happy to work with him on it, so it's now a test as to how genuine he is on that."
However, National's shadow leader of the House, Gerry Brownlee, said it was up to the Government whether to fast-track the bill through Parliament, either by introducing its own version or pushing it up the order paper. "We are not going to waste time fixing government bills. They wrote the law and were the ones who said it had to be a residential address. In the meantime they've gone and broken that left, right and centre."
The issue is a sensitive one for the parties - Labour itself has used its party headquarters address on material including a CD which is being considered by the Electoral Commission.
The advice on Mr English's bill from Ministry of Justice officials also suggested back-dating the provisions, so it retrospectively validated advertisements which breach the current law.
However, yesterday Ms King said she had not asked for the law change to apply retrospectively, and would not do so.
It is not the only clash between the two parties over the act. National has had papers served on Labour for one of its two court cases under the act. National is seeking judicial review on the Electoral Commission's discretion not to refer Labour's first breach of the law to the police. The court action is also expected to clarify the confusing delineation between election advertising and genuine work done in their capacity as an MP - which is exempt from election spending rules.
