Sticking to rules easy, says party in the clear

The only party that did not spend election money illegally, the Progressives, says it was not hard to keep within the rules during the last campaign.

And when it was unsure, it asked the office of the Auditor-General himself, Kevin Brady.

Former list MP Matt Robson, who could perhaps still be in Parliament if the Progressives had dipped into leader Jim Anderton's parliamentary budget, said "there was no ambiguity".

"I guess Jim taught us not to play fast and loose with those rules."

Mr Robson said there also needed to be greater control over MPs' spending.

"It's a lesson to us. My view is there needs to be some public control over how members of Parliament spend."

At present it is left to MPs themselves, who get independent advice every three years about whether to increase their overall limit.

Mr Robson said the Progressives followed one clear rule: Not to put out anything with parliamentary money that said "vote for me".

"It didn't have to be those three words; it could be anything which was akin to that. It was just like breathing.

"I didn't have to have a law degree to know the difference between money in your own pocket and somebody else's."

The Progressives spent $218,000 on their election campaign.

Before the election, Mr Anderton's leader's fund, against which party advertising could have been unlawfully billed, was $245,000.

"Of course there are some grey areas but I have heard people saying the rules were ambiguous. No, they weren't."

Mr Robson said there was a designated person in Mr Anderton's office, former adviser Andrew Ladley, who ensured all material was within the rules and, if there was any doubt, it was checked with the Auditor-General.

The two coalition partners, Labour and the Progressives, are at each extreme of the spectrum: the one-MP Progressive Party incurred no black marks; Labour incurred about $800,000 of black marks in a draft report on wrongful use of Parliament's funds for electioneering.

Mr Brady's report will be presented on Thursday, with Speaker Margaret Wilson's response.

She was handed the final version of Mr Brady's report on Friday but is understood to have received a near-final version three weeks ago, at the same time as Parliament's bureaucrats, Parliamentary Service, for which she holds responsibility.

Mr Brady has already said he will not tell parties to pay back any money found to have been spent unlawfully.

That will be a decision either for the Speaker - though she is highly unlikely to order it - or more likely, it will be left to each party's judgment.

Mr Robson said he was on the Parliamentary Service Commission which had looked at the rules after the 2002 election.

"I remember it well because clearly there were a lot of concerns after 2002. There were parties that were pretty fast and loose even then."

Labour's pledge card had clearly broken the rule that prohibited material designed to persuade people to vote for a particular party.

"I know it does. Both as an elector and as a member of Parliament - but until I saw somebody put out a press statement I thought they were paying for it themselves.

"I think they should just pay it back."

Labour says Parliament paid for its 2002 and 1999 cards as well - though under the secrecy of Parliamentary Service that did not have to be declared, and was not.

Labour, and several other parties, also say that Parliamentary Service approved their expenditure.

Embarrassingly for Labour, Crown Law has disputed that, saying Parliamentary Service has no discretion and the decisions are up to the parties themselves.