Lies about the pledge card need to stop

There is something very disturbing about the consensus between the media and the National Party, currently reflected in public opinion polls, that maliciously (and incorrectly) accuses political parties including Labour of wrongly using parliamentary funds in promoting their policies during the last election.

The casual implication is one of corruption. This needs to be met head on and rejected for what it is: a smear and a lie, and a dangerous one. Bear with me because this is a slightly long post. I’ll do a separate post later in the week on the alleged breach of the spending limits by parties.

Let’s recap. Parliament appropriates a sum of money every year for parliamentary political parties to promote their policies. Those funds are administered by the Parliamentary Service, which establishes the rules for the use of the funds, checks off proposed spending against the rules, and makes the relevant payments for promotion.

The funds are there to promote policies. The rules have always been clear and have not changed. The publications must promote policy. They cannot solicit money, membership or votes. This is read in a literal way. One could mount an argument that any mention of a policy is soliciting votes, so the rule has been a literal one. You cannot use parliamentary service funding to say “Vote ACT.” You can use it to say “ACT will cut your taxes if it leads the government.”

In 1999, 2002 and 2005, Labour used this funding to pay for a pledge card, outlining the policies it would implement in government if it was elected to office. The pledge card does not solicit money, membership or votes. The Parliamentary Service saw the card in advance, and it paid for it. It did this three times in a row over a period of six years.

Those who wish to claim that the spending was inappropriate therefore need first to direct questions to the Parliamentary Service. If the use of the funds was not appropriate, why did Parliamentary Service not say so? Why did Parliamentary Service not warn any of the parties that they were proposing to spend money wrongly? Why did Parliamentary Service not withhold the payments and tell parties to pay the bills themselves?

Unless one believes there is some kind of conspiracy to break the law between the Parliamentary Service and the leaderships of ACT, New Zealand First, United Future and Labour, then clearly a different conclusion is the tenable one: Parliamentary Service made the payments, didn’t raise concerns and didn’t ask parties to pay for the material because it fell within the rules.

Now, the only basis that anyone has to question my outline as above is reports of a draft Auditor General’s report into the use of this funding in the first three months of the 2005/06 year. This apparently contains an opinion from the Acting Solicitor General that holds that the use of this parliamentary service funding to promote policies is illegal.

That is very strange. The funds were appropriated by Parliament to promote policies, among the other purposes to which such funds can be put. They were used to promote policies. Parliamentary Service raised no concerns with the way this was done, and saw the use as in line with the rules established for such spending.

How can anyone then think that the use of the funds, for the purpose they were designed, could possibly be illegal?

The next interesting point will be the release of the Auditor General’s final report. The AG will consider the submissions of the parties to his draft report, and the accuracy and relevance of the reported opinion of the Acting Solicitor General. He will need to make recommendations of whatever sort he sees fit to straighten this issue up.

One thing that has been raised is validating legislation. Such legislation happens all the time where concerns arise that appropriations have been used not precisely as per the letter of the Estimates.

So far however we’ve been dealing with the facts. One has to inject the politics. Whatever the Auditor General recommends, I suspect it will be very difficult to promulgate and pass such a law. The lies that are being peddled in comments on the blogs (and by some posters, who should know better) make that clear.

The way the media and the National Party have constructed this story, the parties are in the wrong and should pay the money back. In fact, this is not true. The parties have done nothing wrong and there is no mechanism for them to pay the money back. It will be a cold day in hell before that happens.

My personal view is that if the Auditor General finds, for instance, that the Parliamentary Service has been misunderstanding the rules and that the appropriation has been used in an incorrect way, and then recommends validating legislation, the government should refuse to do so.

While this is a far from acceptable position in oh so many ways, it is absolutely unacceptable politically to give any more credence to the lies of the media and the Opposition by taking a perfectly rational step that can be made to look like something it is not.

A legally imperfect solution is the only way to go unless all political parties would buy into such legislation – and I can guess the chances of that happening.

The way this story has been portrayed – by many of the readers and people who comment here, and by the so-called professional media as well – is simply wrong. Political agendas are being pursued and deserve to be exposed and explored, not swept under the carpet by lazy hacks and malicious bloggers.

It’s not even a case of shooting the messenger. Political media should cover issues like this, but when they do it, they should use their innate ethical ability to put aside the views of politically interested players, and examine the issues in a dispassionate and fact-based way.

Corruption is a dirty word and should be used where it is due. It should not be used wrongly, for political point scoring that ignores the facts of the matter. The media need to stop referring to ‘unlawful’ spending, they need not to print allegations of ‘corruption’ without identifying them as allegations, and they should avoid judging the issues based on a draft report that hasn’t been made public.

Then they might deserve the respect we should all be able to give to the fourth estate. The National Party of course deserves no respect at all.

Comments

[Gooner]

I agree with most of this Jordan except the last sentence. Dean Knight takes relatively the same approach.

[Graeme Edgeler]

The Auditor-General will not recommend validating legislation. That is not his job.

Just like it is not his job to ask people to pay money back.
(cf. http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411749/825653)

Of course, whether public money can be spent on this at all is a different question from whether the spending had to be accounted for in election returns.

If Labour, or any other party, was told in advance of the election that certain spending (whatever its funding source) was election spending and had to be included, and then went on spending, so that they spent over the campaign limit (knowing they were doing so) then they are corrupt because a "corrupt practice" is exactly what the Electoral Act defines such practice as.

[rightkiwi]

Because you are Labour, you can't understand the concept of responsibility. MPs must take responsibility for the use of parliamentary funds. They cannot pass this to Parliamentary Services. Parliamentary Services pays the money MPs tell them to pay because they are bureaucrats and not responsible. Whatever happens, the MP IS RESPONSIBLE for the money.

As a thought experiement, imagine if Parliamentary Services bureaucrats started saying it would allow or disallow parliamentary communications. This would be for them to interfere in the political process and start making decisions for MPs about what is political and what is not political. This would be an outrage. This is why THEY NEVER REFUSE TO PAY AN INVOICE SIGNED BY AN MP OR A SENIOR STAFFER.

The quid pro quo of this is that MPS ARE RESPONSIBLE.

This is not kindergarten, and MPs are not four year olds. There is no teacher setting them the rules and telling them what they can and cannot do. MPs set the rules and MPs are, in all circumstances, responsible for them.

Plus, you are wrong. The rules were changed after the 2002 election, so whatever happened in the 1999 and 2002 elections is not really relevant.

As for your statement that it will be a cold day in hell before Labour pays back the money ITS MPS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR AND MISAPPROPRIATED, that shows the arrogance of Labour people and why you are going to lose the next election - not on "corruption" but on arrogance.

And it is corrupt to misappropriate taxpayers' money to a political campaign, especially when the Attorney-General warned Heather Simpson not to do this in advance, based on the new post-2002 election rules.

[Spam]

Jordan - you keep referring to them as "lies", and I still struggle to see how you can claim that.

A lie needs to be something that someone honestly doesn't believe, conveyed with an intent to deceive - I don't see that with the media. At best, I think you could claim a difference of opinion. But lies?

[Jordan]

I am checking up to what changes were made in the rules but my information to hand suggests no changes were made which have any impact on this.

You are lying about two points.

First, Parliamentary Service *does* feedback on stuff. If they push hard MPs will change their decisions. That is how the system works and every party, including National, knows it. Your fantasy land description is just that: a fantasy.

Second, if the spending was in line with the rules, which it was, then saying it is corrupt is nonsense. It is a lie.

Do your own thought experiment.

You were a person signing off material for payment, and you know that in the past you've had queries come back. As a responsible actor if a query is raised, you check it out and if it breaches the rules you don't publish, or arrange for different payment. You follow this process about your party's pledge card. No query is raised, to your knowledge it is in line with the rules, and PS pays for it.

There was no warning in advance from the AG. That is part of the pack of lies that now surrounds this issue. The only thing the AG said in the earlier report is that the rules would need to be come back to be clarified post election. To spin that into something it's not is malicious bollocks.

[Graeme Edgeler]

I should also add thanks for answering others' questions about what the lies of which you claimed were. I was wondering myself.

Perhaps another question, however. Let us assume that the National Party received $4million Parliamentary funding, it then knowingly used all of that $4million in the two weeks prior to the election publishing leaflets and posters and newspaper ads that say "National will cut taxes if it leads the next government".

Would a National Party so acting be corrupt?
[I think they would - having knowingly breached the election spending cap - a "corrupt practice"]

[rightkiwi]

See - you cannot understand the concept of responsibility. Stop hiding behind mid-level pen-pushers at Parliamentary Services. We are talking about the PRIME MINISTER'S CHIEF OF STAFF for fuck's sake. If she signs an invoice, the mid-level bureaucrats from J'ville pay it.

Give ONE example of Parliamentary Services not paying an invoice by a senior MP or staffer. Give ONE example of Parliamentary Services "pushing hard".

And why should a cardigan-wearing bureaucrat have to "push hard" against the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister's Office is RESPONSIBLE and should not even be asking them to "approve" something or pay for something that breaks the laws. That is simply not fair to hide behind junior bureaucrats in this way. That is why our system does not make them responsible. I thought Labour used to defend the weak against the powerful. Now it seems to be, let the weak take responsibility for our actions, just like with the motorcade cops.

The AG did give warning. He sought meetings with Clark and Brash well before the election to explain his interpretation of the rules. Brash agreed to the meeting. As a result, his office did not break the rules. Clark declined, perhaps because she wanted to remain ignorant of the rules, so that she could break them. She sent Heather Simpson instead.

[the deity formerly known as nigel6888]

hahaha

burn baby burn

you would be a lot more effective breathing through your nose on this topic. As it is you are simply giving your political foes lots of ammunition to mock you with later.

Anyway, wasn't the last person to trust you to give them political advice poor old marian hobbs - and look what happened to her.

but on second thoughts don't stop tell us more about these "lies"

that PS really does scrutinise and stop Ministerially approved party expenditure

that the rules weren't changed following the 2002 election

that the money was misappropriated before is a defence against it happening in the future

that labour didnt know the rules had changed

that the chief electoral officer hadnt written to mike williams about the issue

that mike williams didnt write back promising that the party would meet the funding of the pledge card

that two weeks after the election mike williams didnt renege on that undertaking.

that labour didnt exceed its spending cap for the election by between $400 and $800 THOUSAND dollars - between 18 and 30 percent more than it was legally allowed to spend on the election campaign.

go on, I know you want to prove that these lies are simply malicious political attacks

bwuhahahaha

[AGJ]

Jordan would you like some cheese with that whine. The public are seeing precisely what sort of government we have with this continual spin that is being produced by the Labour party and its followers. Keep digging Jordan you’ve almost hit rock bottom.

[rightkiwi]

The more carefully I read your post, the more lies leap out. EG:

"Parliament appropriates a sum of money every year for parliamentary political parties to promote their policies. Those funds are administered by the Parliamentary Service, which establishes the rules for the use of the funds, checks off proposed spending against the rules, and makes the relevant payments for promotion."

The funds are administered by PS. That is true. But the rules are set by MPs themselves. PS does NOT check off proposed spending against the rules - it may try to assist but this is not a "check off" or "approval" process. Yes, it makes the relevant payments - but ONLY BECAUSE AN MP OR SENIOR STAFFER HAS SIGNED THE INVOICE.

Remember also, the invoice will not say "Labour Party Pledge Card". It will say "Design, print, production and mailout of brochure". When Heather Simpson signs this, SHE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR IT, not the bureaucrat who - not knowing exactly what it is for - arranges the payment.

Be fair to these people. They are accounts clerks. They do not - and nor should they - argue with the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff about rules set by MPs that they administer.

If you don't agree with the above, take it up with Parliamentary Services, because it is the position they have outlined in a legal document.

[Jordan]

Rightkiwi. Your level of anger at losing three elections and then knowing you're wrong in this is making you sound silly.

Graham, the spending limit is the spending limit. It is a completely separate issue to where funding for the pledge card came from. If any party knowingly breached the spending limit then yes that is defined as corruption in the Electoral Act.

"nigel" - I managed Marian's campaign and we boosted our majority to 6k, and tore Blumsky to pieces. Seems pretty successful to me. Labour's view is that the pledge card is not attributable spending and that was made clear in its return, which noted its dispute with the CEO in the matter of its inclusion. The police investigated this and declined to take a prosecution.

[Insolent Prick]

Jordan,

Please provide documentary evidence that Parliamentary Services was informed of the pledge card in advance, and received legal advice that the pledge card was legitimate spending.

Your whole argument becomes somewhat flimsy, however, given the fact that every legal authority who has looked at the pledge card has said that it was an election-related activity. Mike Williams himself said that the pledge card was an "integrated part of Labour's campaign". That is not policy promotion. That is electioneering.

You've also conveniently overlooked that we're not just talking about the $446,000 pledge card. We're talking about the $800,000+ that Labour used for electioneering purposes in the three months prior to election day.

This is the money Labour refuses to pay back, and wants to validate.

I agree, that in the cut and thrust of an election, individual MPs can make mistakes. But it takes a wholly concerted effort by the Labour Party to spend $800k+ more than ANYBODY ELSE.

Stop spinning, Jordan. Dip into your pink pocket and pay it back.

[Jordan]

Lying again, Rightkiwi. The Parliamentary Service's governing board, the PS Commission, composed of an MP from every parliamentary party, makes the rules. The Parliamentary Service then administers them.

As someone who has personally had PS query a publication - and who has then changed it, sent it back, and had it approved, before going ahead - I trust my own experience of how the system works over your hysterical hypotheticals.

These people are charged with the fair administration of the Parliament and its support services. They are professional and responsible public servants. To characterise them as inept account clerks is to belittle and misunderstand what they do and how they work, and simply proves my point: you have no idea what you are talking about.

[rightkiwi]

"As someone who has personally had PS query a publication - and who has then changed it, sent it back, and had it approved, before going ahead - I trust my own experience of how the system works."

Post the details.

[rightkiwi]

"Rightkiwi. Your level of anger at losing three elections and then knowing you're wrong in this is making you sound silly."

Gee, that's a clever comeback, without addressing the points.

And there is no anger, because if your attitude reflects the Labour Party's thinking then you are toast in 2008, not because of the particulars of this issue but because - like Nixon's White House - you have lost contact with what is right and wrong, and truthful and untruthful.

[Jordan]

IP: You are spinning like a top.

Parliamentary Service signs off on policy promotion. The rules clearly define what that means: what it cannot do is ask - LITERALLY - for money, for membership, or for votes. If there was not such a hard edged, literal rule, then everything would be second guessed by them and that would be intolerable.

These rules apply at all times; there is no "three month" limit AT ALL. The only reason "three months" is being mentioned is because the AG, as I understand it, is looking into matters in the first quarter of 05/06. It is nothing to do with the three month period for attributable spending under the Electoral Act.

The proper use of parliamentary funds for policy promotion is COMPLETELY SEPARATE to any issues about spending limits. I have already stated what happened there above.

As for documentary evidence, sorry, I don't have any. I should imagine however that the Auditor General does.

[Jordan]

If you thought we were toast in 2008, you wouldn't be angry.

And as for details, as far as I recall it was an ad for constituency services, and the problem was the size of the House of Reps crest compared with the size of the Labour logo (it was too small). Trivial, but an illustration of the point. PS intervenes in a HELPFUL manner.

As for responding - you are simply repeating yourself. I don't feel the need to make the same point to you more than once. If you're not capable of understanding what I say the first time, whose problem is that? Mine? I think not.

[Graeme Edgeler]

Thank you Jordan. I understand that the spending limit is separate from where the money came from - and I guess a couple of questions follow:
1) do you accept that Labour spent $400k or thereabouts more than the election spending limit?
2a) If the answer to q1 is no, do you accept that Labour filed a false return?
2b) If the answer to q1 is yes, do you also accept that Labour knowingly overspent?

[Insolent Prick]

Jordan,

You should know that once you start blaming the media, you really are close to being in free-fall. Amusing how you can change your stance within twenty-four hours from patting yourself on the back after an "okay" poll, to wild hysteria and paranoia that everybody's ganging up on you.

The public of New Zealand will not accept Labour getting off on a technicality on rules that it wrote. Every reputable authority has said that the $800k+ spending of Parliamentary Services money was electioneering. If it was not electioneering, then your Party President would not have described it as an integral part of Labour's campaign.

Labour deliberately attempted to dodge the clear rules on campaign expenditure under the electoral act by applying parliamentary services funding. As a consequence, you managed to spend $800k more than anybody else. That it was taxpayer's money, rather than your own, makes that theft even more disgusting.

26,000 votes separated the National and Labour Parties from Government. Labour spent $800k+ more on its campaign with taxpayer's money than anybody else. That is corruption, and every media and public commentator who labels it as such is just telling it as it is.

Pay it back, Jordan. Try and be honest for a change.

[rightkiwi]

The example you give is of a technical trivial point, just as, in your response to IP, you refer to the most obvious examples - that you can't say "Vote National" or "Vote Labour". These are so obvious that it is a scandal that any MP or staffer would ever even present such an idea to Parliamentary Services.

But the rules prevent "electioneering" and that is a judgement call THAT IS MEANT TO BE MADE BY MPS NOT THEIR SUPPORT STAFF AT PARLIAMENTARY SERVICES. Obviously, "National will cut your tax" is a different statement in a National Party brochure three weeks from an election than "National will cut your tax" in a Labour Party brochure now. In the former, it is designed to win votes; in the latter it is a statement, perhaps a criticism, and part of, perhaps, a process about getting feedback on policy. So it would be wrong if posted out by National three weeks before an election and not wrong if Labour (or National) did it now.

It is unfair to expect bureaucrats to make these decisions. They are political judgements that must be made by politicians AND SO POLITICIANS MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. You obviously have difficulty with such a concept and what the Parliamentary Services - like the cops in speedgate - to take the fall for the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff.

[Jordan]

Graeme, where are you going with this? Labour filed its return and noted on it that the amount of the pledge card was in dispute.

http://www.elections.org.nz/parties/party-expenses-2005.html - see the note asterisked at the bottom.

[neil morrison]

Then we move on to question 2b).

[rightkiwi]

The URL you link to does not show that Labour said the money was in dispute. It says "The total in Total Declared Party Election Expenses column includes the sum of $446,815.00 shown by the party as a separate category on the return document." And how disgraceful for a major party to have any kind of asterisk on its return.

[Insolent Prick]

rightkiwi:

You make a very good point. If Labour had the pledge card approved in advance, I'd very much like to see the paper trail. Unfortunately, as PS is not covered by the Official Information Act, we can't seek that. The Labour Party is more than happy to table it.

A pledge card approved in 2004 may be a legitimate use of policy promotion if distributed in 2004. If distributed in 2005 in the height of an election campaign, it can only have one purpose: to promote a party for electioneering purposes. It doesn't frigging matter whether it says Vote Labour. No voter receiving the pledge card would think: "Oh, this is not party promotion during an election. This is simply policy promotion, unrelated to this election, even tho' Mike Williams says it's the main plank of Labour's campaign."

Free political advice for you, Jordan. Don't treat voters like they're frigging stupid. It doesn't win their vote next time.

[NX]

The pledge card does not solicit money, membership or votes.

Ha you're diluted. 4 independent watched dogs have ruled that the spending was illegal. The pledge card was designed to solicit votes, even Mike Williams said so.

why did Parliamentary Service not say so?

Because chief bureaucrat Clark, benevolent ruler of Helengrad, would rip the balls of a mere civil servant who opposed her. And Heather Simpson is pretty much the same. I think she once said that she likes people to fear her but she doesn't respect anyone who does!

[Jordan]

Rightkiwi, you are not taking in anything I am saying.

If Parliamentary Service didn't have hard edged definitions they stuck to, then they'd be in the impossible position you identify: of second guessing everything. They only do it on the clear issues of money, membership and votes. Other than those, the vote can be used to promote policy. It does not matter a whit whether this is done one day after an election or one day before it. No changes to the rules in 2003 had any impact on this.

It is a scandalous lie to imply based on this that anything wrong was done. You and your crew are doing this for political reasons to damage the Labour Party. Why I or anyone else should give any credence to your interpretation, given the ignorance upon which it is based, is utterly beyond me.

As for the Prime Minister's chief of staff, the police have already been there, remember? They decided not to press charges.

[Insolent Prick]

Jordan,

Is the gist of what you're saying, quite honestly, that the pledge card, distributed in the very middle of an election campaign, was not designed to receive votes, money, or membership?

Do you REALLY expect anybody to believe that?

[Billy]

How do we explain Mike Williams telling the CEO before the election that the pledge card spending would be included in the return? Why would he have made such a concession if it is so clear that it need not have been?

[Jordan]

NX - you're confusing (probably deliberately, based on your tone) two different things.

Nobody other than the National Party and the media have suggested the spending was illegal. A draft AG report was leaked which apparently says this, but I would be waiting to see the final report if I were you.

It's a totally separate issue to that of the spending limits, where Labour never bought into the interpretation of the card as an attributable expense from the CEO and the Electoral Commission.

[rightkiwi]

NX, IP: exactly. Jordan's li(n)e is that "everyone is telling lies about this, except Helen" - when Helen is the one person with an incentive to lie about it. Apparently, she and Simpson never DREAMED it might make someone vote Labour. It wasn't electioneering. It was mere "policy promotion". What a load of crap. Even Mike Williams is more credible.

[Jordan]

The only political advice requried is that we should not be sitting back and ignoring the swirl of lies, deceptions and misattribution coming out of your mouth, IP.

IP: Let me reframe your question. Do you believe that publicising a party's policy is ever done with any intention other than to build support for it?

All the parties, including National, use parliamentary funds to promote their policies. They do so in the complete hope that this will improve public support for them.

Is there something hard to understand here?

[Graeme Edgeler]

Sorry, I'd forgotten that - 2a is out of line.

I'm taking this to what I consider the logical conclusion.

I can accept that Labour's pledgecard was within Parliamentary Service rules;
or I can accept that Labour believed the pledgecard was within the rules, if it turns out it wasn't;

However, I find it difficult to accept that even if a narrow interpretation of 'solicit votes' is adopted for PS rules purposes, that the broad definition of 'election activity' in the electoral act is not also met by the pledgecards.

I believe the Labour Party, or someone in it, committed a corrupt practice - that even if they broke no Parliamentary rule "corrupt" is still an adjective that applies.

[Jordan]

Actually I think you'll find that it is National and the media who are accusing ACT, New Zealand First, United Future and Labour of being corrupt, in league with the parliamentary service.

Do you seriously think that that is likely?

[rightkiwi]

Jordan, you are not taking in anything that almost everyone in the country is saying, because you cannot understand the concept of RESPONSIBILITY. The rules say that MPs cannot use the money for "electioneering" and MPs are responsible for the spending of the money. The Labour Party did use the money for electioneering, as any fool (and Mike Williams) can see. Thay makes the spending outside the rules, and therefore a misappropriation, and therefore illegal.

MPs are grown ups. They are not supposed to need "hard-edged definitions". They are meant to behave responsibility, to follow the rules and therefore not to use the money for "electioneering".

As for "it is a scandalous lie to imply based on this that anything wrong was done" - of course wrong was done. Every authority that has looked at this has found that.

And as for the PM's Chief of Staff: the police found a prima facie case against her but decided not to prosecute because they thought others in the Prime Minister's office were also involved in the illegal behaviour. And according to today's Herald, there is likely to be a private prosecution against her for fraud.

[Logix]

Interesting to see reference to the now dead in the water "speedergate" affair. It's become obvious the same basic "dirty politic's" strategy is being recycled here:

1. Pick an emotive issue where is appears the govt is in some technical breach of the rules.

2. Whip a frenzy of lies and half-assed misinterpretations of the rules.

3. When the correct legal interpretation is pointed out this cutting the ground from under them, quickly shift the game from "rules", to "ethics", so as they can festoon their limited vocabulary of "corrupt" and "Liarbore" over and over upon the emaciated strawmen of their own mis-conceived (but now firmly held) opinions.

4. And while they figure out more ways to lay waste to New Zealand's future, cephalopods like Farrar and his amen chorus waggle their tentacles in unison, awaiting their next feeding time.

[Jordan]

Graeme - that is your opinion and you are free to hold it. If everyone under the sun was only accusing Labour of having breached the electoral act spending limit, then the argument would be about whether the card should have been included or not. We have argued not. The electoral authorities have argued it should have been and the police said there was a case to answer, but chose not to prosecute.

However this is where the maliciousness comes in. That issue is being conflated with the matter of the use of parliamentary funds, and the word 'corruption' is being attached because of the use of parliamentary funds.

What is intolerable in the way the *media* are dealing with this. They are mixing different issues up and allowing a label to stick in a way that is misleading the public. They are doing so at the behest of the National Party and in so doing they are essentially accusing all the parliamentary parties which spent money in this fashion of something they are not guilty of - namely, corruption.

Unwinding the two debates is very hard to do and is of course pure gold for National in a political sense. All credit to them for pushing it very successfully. What it means though is that pure fantasy can become established in the public mind as fact. Problematic for democracy, I'd say.

[peter mck]

jordan - if the pledge card was not distributed during the election campaign to solicit votes then why did the labour party do it.

Your agruement falls down right there.

your party is corrupt - your only defence is to try and call everyone else a liar. You are only decieving yourselves - you are a member of a corrupt party is dire trouble and you are being punished.

But thanks for keeping the issue live - means more people will support parties other than the corrupt labour party

[Jordan]

RK: You are wilfully mixing two sets of issues to create a perception that does not exist. You have done this so successfully that the public have bought into it.

That does not make it correct. Nor does it mean that me or anyone else in the Labour Party is going to suddenly say: 'oh, well we might as well agree with you even though you're wrong.'

Back to the facts: Labour's spending of parliamentary funds for the pledge card was in line with the rules as defined and administered in the Parliamentary Service. Labour contests the attribution of the pledge card as an election expense.

[Insolent Prick]

Jordan,

You're living in fairy-land here.

The Electoral Act has very clear rules on campaign spending to ensure that no political party buys its way into office.

During 2005, the Labour Party saved up its Parliamentary Services funding, with a view to withhold its parliamentary services funding until the heat of an election campaign, so that funding would have maximum electoral effect. Labour spent $446,000 on the pledge card, plus some $400,000 additional spending, of parliamentary services funding to gain maximum electioneering effect during an election campaign.

In doing so, it knew it would breach the limit on spending under the Electoral Act.

You are now saying that despite Mike Williams describing the pledge card as the core plank of Labour's campaign, released in the middle of the sanctioned campaign under the Electoral Act, it was not election-related activity. You do this by saying that the pledge card and other spending did not specifically use the words "Vote Labour", or "Give Labour Money". The reality is that no voter would have seen that distinction.

Labour outspent everybody else during the campaign by $800k+, in clear breach of the spending limits in the Electoral Act. It did so with parliamentary services funding. It bought the campaign.

Now, please show me where in the Parliamentary Services rules, a political party is permitted to use Parliamentary Services funding to commit an unlawful act. If you can do that, you can safely say that although Labour breached the Electoral Act, it did not breach Parliamentary Services rules.

But you still don't get away from having the Labour Party being labelled, rightfully, corrupt and thieving.

[Billy]

Why is, Jordan, that any time anyone disagrees with you, they are out to kill democracy? I hate the way the left cannot accept that anyone who holds views different to them is sincere.

[David Farrar]

I don't think Labour is corrupt because they paid for the pledge card out of their leaders parliamentary budget. They are corrupt if they refuse to pay the money back, having had it deemed to be illegal.

And they are beyond doubt corrupt for deliberately over-spending in the campaign, despite multiple warnings. And they are liars for having broken a promise to the Chief Electoral Officer.

What I find fascinating is the $400,000 or so of other Labour expenditure that the AG has found to be electioneering from individual Labour MPs. If such expenditure was also found to be election advertising undre the Electoral Act, then there is a case to be made that almost every single Labour constituency MP over-spent and if electoral petitions had been brought, then most of the Labour Caucus would be out of Parliament.

We won't know unless the final Auditor-General report details the breaches.

[John]

Good post Jordan. I've been really confused about this issue in the media. It has looked like Labour are being unfair, but your post makes a lot of sense. I'm not sure how Labour can get that message out though. Any suggestions?

[Matt]

This is such a bunch of ass. Why don't politicians start talking about stuff that matters, like child abuse and education. Sometimes they can all be as bad as each other.

[Oliver]

I smell the sweet stench of hypocrisy.

That sweet stench comes from the fact that the National Party, a party of financiers and free marketeers on the whole these days, think they can get away with blatantly stealing well over a hundred thousand dollars from the tax payer by saying they forgot to pay GST.

So why don't National Party members here, like comrade Farrar, get their stuff together and actually admit they did worse than Labour? The National Party are no less 'corrupt' than Labour, no more 'liars' than Labour.

Utter hypocrites.

[Insolent Prick]

I thought about that same issue this morning, David.

I suppose that each electoral petition would have to establish that the undeclared parliamentary services spending was used to promote an individual candidate, rather than the Party. The pledge card was clearly promotion of the Labour Party, rather than the candidate. The same can probably not be said of the other $400,000 that Jordan, the PM, and others are deliberately spinning away from.

Either way, a further step that Hooten didn't include might be to challenge every Labour constitutency MP based on their application of PS funding to their campaigns.

[mikeybill]

Jordan, I'm a natural labour supporter, but I cannot agree with your arguments here, and I really hate the way you are insulting my intelligence by claiming that I and others like me are simply dupes being taken in by the media and National.

Of course the pledge card was election spending. They have always been so in the past as well.

Mike Williams admitted it.

The only people who are disputing this are the party hierarchy.I can tell you a hell of a lot of the party members are not happy with how you lot have dealt with this, and telling us we are simply being sucked in by a right-wing conspiracy doesn't work.

[tim barclay]

Yup time to move on. The Labour Party cannot be bothering spending its valuable time in fund rasing efforts. Much more interesting things to do, we will just get our fund rasing from the tax payers, when we like it and to hell with the Auditor General, the Chief Electoral Officer and the Solcititor General and the public.

[Insolent Prick]

No, Oliver. That's not what happened.

National made an error in calculating its GST component on what was paid to broadcasters. National fronted up, admitted the error, and wanted to pay it back. It sought specific legislation to allow it to pay it back--to the broadcasters, not the taxpayer, since the taxpayer was not out of pocket--the broadcasters were.

When it sought to pay it back, Government parties in Parliament blocked the move.

You're either deliberately trying to lie about this, or you're ignorant.

[Darren Stewart]

Jordan, how come this issue is National versus every other party in Parliament, yet it is the media that are uncritically taking National's side? From the outside it looks like the media are running a campaign to get rid of Labour. You'd think that there would at least be some critical look into the issue, rather than just repeating National's slogans.

[Oliver]

Sure, IP. Labour is just searching for legislation to validify it's supposed 'error' in spending what had been previously taken as precedent, just it's being blocked by other parties and is being called corupt.

Yet again, I watch with delight as National Party appratchiks enlist spin and lies to make their massive and hugely embarrasing 'error' (in reality perhaps to squeeze a little extra out of their bucks?) seem better than Labour's true error.