Goff out of line on election spending

Phil Goff

Senior Labour MP Phil Goff appears to have broken ranks with a strategy being run by party leaders to mount a personal challenge against draft Auditor-General findings that he breached election spending rules.

His decision to go into bat on his own behalf is believed to counter an internal edict delivered by Labour bosses that all of Kevin Brady's overspending claims would be tackled collectively by Helen Clark's office, under the management of her chief of staff Heather Simpson.

This was in case any individual negotiations undermined the Labour fight-back over the pledgecard findings.

The revelation comes after an admission by Labour strategist Pete Hodgson that the pledgecard was used for "electioneering" - a damaging concession the party has sought to avoid.

Both admissions are signals that Labour's strategy, the handling of which is already the subject of division within the party, is fraying and indicates heated discussions in caucus tomorrow are likely.

Mr Brady established that Labour had an $800,000 election spending debt in his draft election spending report.

This is largely accounted for by the $446,000 pledgecard and an extra pamphlet - already the subject of a bitter row between Labour and Mr Brady - but is also believed to include alleged electorate over-spending by a number of MPs.

Mr Goff confirmed yesterday he had written to Mr Brady to contest the findings in relation to his own electorate spending and indicated he had been successful.

He said Mr Brady had now backed down on a number of the initial overspending claims he had made, which raised questions about the validity of those that remained.

Although Mr Goff defended the pledgecard spending yesterday, he refused to say whether he believed Labour should pay the money back if Mr Brady found it to be unlawful in his final report, due next week.

"I've expressed no opinion on that. I'm just waiting on the decision of the Auditor-General and I don't think there is much point in getting into a hypothetical discussion until such time as we've seen his decision."

Labour's Auckland MPs are believed to have been particularly targeted by Mr Brady, but none returned Herald calls yesterday.

Manukau East MP Ross Robertson refused to say when contacted if he had received a letter from Mr Brady, but at the same time confirmed such claims were not supposed to be addressed individually by MPs.

"All I know is that it has been handled by the Labour Party, the whole lot."

Asked if he meant the party or by Ms Simpson in the Prime Minister's Office, he said he wasn't sure.

"I know it was a caucus decision that it was going to be handled as a group."

Mr Goff was reluctant to talk about the matter yesterday, but said there was no dispute over his spending.

Asked if that meant Mr Brady had accepted his arguments and backed down, he replied, "That's your interpretation, yes".

He refused to reveal the extent of the debt initially alleged.

"I'm not getting into that. But I've been around politics a long time and I know what's lawful and not lawful and anything that I've ever put out in the electorate has been done properly."

Mr Brady has already backed down on $30,000 of spending by the Green Party and on some Act spending he initially said was unlawful.

National had paid the Parliamentary Service $10,588, the total spent against the budgets of seven MPs that the Auditor-General found unlawful.

The Maori Party has repaid a $53 debt.

Helen Clark refused to respond to questions about election spending yesterday and Mr Brady did not return a Herald call.