Festive season not so jolly for MPs

New Zealand First's Christmas card has been rejected by the Parliamentary Service because of the Auditor-General's finding on election advertising.

Saying the card had been funded previously through parliamentary budgets, Deputy leader Peter Brown warned other parties last night that if they had already had their Christmas cards printed they might have to foot the bill themselves. He said his staff showed a draft of the card (which contained a simple Christmas message and a NZ First logo) to Parliamentray Service last week.

The card was was turned down on the grounds it was not a legitimate expense.

Parliamentary Service general manager Joel George did not return a call but it appears he and his staff believe the report of Auditor-General Kevin Brady on election advertising within three months of the last election has implications for Christmas cards.

National deputy leader Gerry Brownlee said that if he received Christmas cards as a MP it was polite to reply.

"I think most MPs have got their Christmas cards lists down pretty fine but I wouldn't die in a ditch over it," he said.

"I think it shows how pathetic the level of approval has got."

He believed the service had been "fired up" by the likes of [deputy Prime Minister] Michael Cullen trying to minimise the offence Labour had committed by saying the Auditor-General's report was "'a plague on all our houses'. It is not."

Dr Cullen yesterday taunted Lockwood Smith over a calendar he had had funded by the service in 2002, saying it would not be allowed today.

The calendar comprised of 12 small pieces of paper fitting into a plastic CD cover with each month containing contact details as well as a different picture of Dr Smith in activities such as joining children at a local school in a haka and Orewa surf life savers for a beach photo, meeting Whangaparaoa Scouts and being joined by Dame Malvina Major, Ray Columbus and Max Cryer for the annual Christmas concert he hosts for the elderly.

Dr Cullen said that under Mr Brady's ruling, the calendar promoted Dr Smith and "in that case there is a taint of electioneering which disqualified that expenditure".

Dr Cullen took the finding to even greater extremes by suggesting that if any MP who had used the same telephone for speaking to a constituent about a matter as was used for election canvassing, then the entire parliamentary budget for the telephone would be disqualified.

Dr Smith said the calendar, which he produced in only one year, was like a business card in that it introduced him and gave contact details. He accused Dr Cullen of trying to "muddy the waters" over the Auditor-General's report.