Red faces over Labour spending

MP Shane Jones. Photo / Northern Advocate

MP Shane Jones is expected to be one of the more embarrassed former Labour Cabinet ministers when details of credit card spending going back six years are released today.

Before leaving office, he is understood to have repaid about $6000 for spending deemed outside the rules.

This included hiring a plane from Auckland to make a speech in Tauranga, movie rentals, and the purchase of magazines and expensive wine.

The details of ministerial credit-card spending will be released today under the Official Information Act.

Labour's former ministers have been sent copies of the records in the past two days. Party staff spent yesterday going through the records, which filled eight boxes.

Mr Jones was Building and Construction Minister.

Until this year, only the total spent on ministerial credit cards has been released, not the details.

But Prime Minister John Key decided that full details should be made public.

After the first such release, in February, Housing Minister Phil Heatley resigned from the Cabinet and asked the Auditor-General to investigate.

He was reinstated after the investigation found he had not intended to deceive when spending $1402 against the rules, most of it on travel-related costs for his wife and children.

It found that Mr Heatley's spending of $70 on wine at a National Party function was legitimate.

The details of credit-card spending for present ministers will also be made public.

The 7000 documents to be released took officials four months to gather.

Internal Affairs spokesman Allen Walley put the cost at more than $50,000 and said three staff had worked fulltime on the project since February.

The release will cover from April 2003 until February this year, taking in the whole of Labour's last term in Government.

Of 21 former ministers no longer in the House, 11 requested their details.

- additional reporting by NZPA