KEY POINTS:
Changes to the Electoral Finance Act before the election are looking more likely by the day with United Future leader Peter Dunne yesterday calling for a cross-party conference on the issue.
No party leader rejected his suggestion outright, and even National leader John Key said he would look at it.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said if parties had things they wanted to put on the table in cross-party meetings, "the Minister of Justice will be very happy to convene such meetings".
But more issues were being raised without solution than with solution by other parties.
The impetus for cross-party talks was the advice from the Chief Electoral Officer, Robert Peden, to Act MP Heather Roy that some of her weekly taxpayer-funded newsletters might be regarded as election advertising under the new definition in the act.
Act leader Rodney Hide said: "The Government has got to be big enough to admit it is a monumental cock-up."
The Electoral Finance Act was Labour's response to a $1.2 million initially covert campaign by members of the Exclusive Brethren to support National, but without affecting National's election expenditure.
It widened the definition of election ads, expanded the regulated period to start January 1 of election year and set up a new regime to register and limit third-party spending.
Ms Roy submitted many newsletters, not one in particular, to see if they could be classed as election ads.
Her response to the advice has been to get the Act party's secretary to put an election-ad authorisation statement on what is parliamentary-funded material.
The fact that the newsletters were not cleared has made MPs nervous about issuing such newsletters, which they regard as normal in the course of their duties. Many MPs distribute their own newsletters.
Mr Dunne said yesterday that no one, whether they were for or against the act, could have imagined the extent to which it is now intruding into every aspect of political life and the uncertainty it is causing for election officials, political parties, MPs and candidates.
It had to be sorted out immediately in the interests of a fair election process.
"We want the people to decide this election - not the lawyers and the courts."
Mr Dunne supported the bill up to the third reading, but changed his mind and voted against the final reading.
Justice Minister Annette King said in Parliament that Ms Roy had done the right thing in seeking clarification, but the outcome would depend on the content of the newsletter.
"A newsletter is not open slather; it is not able to be used to electioneer just because it is called a newsletter."
