KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister Helen Clark says it would be nice if the Exclusive Brethren church avoided politics in future, but she doubts it will.
The secretive sect said that becoming involved in the 2005 general election had been a "nightmare".
Brethren members circulated pamphlets attacking Labour and the Greens, and were accused of hiring private detectives to shadow ministers in an initially covert campaign the Government said cost about $1 million.
The aim was to help National win, but some MPs said after the election the Brethren damaged its chances and could even have been responsible for the narrow loss.
The head of the secretive sect, Australian Bruce Hales, has appointed its first ever spokesman, Brisbane businessman Tony McCorkell.
"There was no church-sponsored, organised involvement in anything political," he said yesterday.
"The church itself wasn't involved."
During the election campaign the Labour Party furiously accused National of being in collusion with the church, and of holding secret meetings to help organise its campaign.
Mr McCorkell said "some over-enthusiastic members" were the only ones involved.
There had been "no church-sponsored involvement in anything political", he said on Radio New Zealand.
He had used the word "nightmare" to get his point across, because the issue had turned into "some sort of tabloid story".
Helen Clark said the Exclusive Brethren's actions had been a disaster.
"It bought them into general disrepute in the community," she said.
Whether the experience would be enough to stop "very large cheques being written by the same people next time round" was a "moot point", she said. "I understand their position has always been 'it wasn't the church it was individual members' - I'm not particularly inclined to believe it."
- NZPA
