Fran O'Sullivan: Some witnesses are just not welcome

I'm waiting for the day that Transparency International adds New Zealand to the list of Pacific Island democracies that act like they are Banana Republics.

The attempted Parliamentary cover-up of the misappropriation of taxpayer funds by at least three political parties to pay for their 2005 election advertising expenses has reached new depths.

One by one the independent watchdogs who are responsible for ensuring that Parliament conducts itself in a lawful manner are falling prey to sustained political abuse over their temerity in holding to account those political parties that appear to have unlawfully helped themselves to state funds to boost their electoral advertising budgets.

Even Parliament's justice and electoral reform committee, headed by Labour MP Lynne Pillay, has (so far) failed to call the watchdogs to give evidence in its so-called inquiry into the election.

Former chief electoral officer David Henry, who must surely have been a sitting duck for any parliamentary witness list, has not appeared. Henry, who was first to blow the whistle on Labour by calling in police to investigate what he regarded as clear breaches of the Electoral Act in the run-up to the election, signalled in later correspondence with police that he would dispute their version of events when he appeared before the committee.

Fat chance. The story goes that Henry has been overseas and the committee will simply report back without hearing his strong views. But the inquiry has heard from his successor who wasn't around at the time of election but now occupies the chief electoral officer's hat. In such a circumstance the committee could have called Henry but hasn't so far.

Others who appear to have been overlooked include auditor-general Kevin Brady and former solicitor-general Terence Arnold, each of whom believe Labour and other parties have acted unlawfully by accessing the parliamentary leader's office budgets for election advertising in obvious defiance of repeated warnings that the funds were not to be used for such purposes.

Neither, it would appear, has Roger Carson, the acting police deputy commissioner (operations). It was Carson who decided not to throw the book at Labour's apparatchiks, despite his finding a prima facie case against Prime Minister Helen Clark's chief of staff Heather Simpson.

Earlier this year Carson was reported as saying there was confusion among political parties about parliamentary services' rules on using the party leader funds for election advertising. But police had made recommendations to the CEO which they hoped would make things tidier.

Henry had been concerned that Labour party secretary Mike Smith had not authorised Clark's pledge card, which the watchdogs agree was a clear electoral advertising device.

The electoral commission had said the pledge cards should have been included in Labour's campaign expenses, which would have pushed Labour about $400,000 over its $2.38 million campaign spending limit.

But Carson, citing all-round confusion, urged the watchdogs to clarify the rules for the next election. "It is in everyone's interests. We want to run fair and proper elections in this country."

Those such as Henry who believe the election should also have been conducted in a fair and proper fashion are not being called to testify on why their views should have taken supremacy over Carson's extraordinarily lily-livered stance

Henry had advised Carson that if he was called in front of Pillay's committee he would have taken issue with a number of comments made by the police deputy commissioner.

Now, MPs are citing Parliament's antiquated privileges as the reason they can't talk publicly about the committee's inquiry or just what strings were pulled behind scenes to stop the fair and fearless probe.

Labour and National have even numbers on the committee. It doesn't take a stroke of genius to deduct that Labour, with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake, might want to close it down.

But Green MP Nandor Tanczos should take a principled stance and use his influence to ensure the inquiry hears evidence from Henry, Carson, Smith, Simpson et al before trying to close its book on the affair. The consequences for the reputation of our democracy are too grave otherwise.

National will inevitably play a sanctimonious hand. The party has already paid $10,000 to Parliamentary Services, the rough amount its MPs illegally pinged parliamentary funds for electoral purposes.

But there is room for Labour MPs and Tanczos to embarrass National by calling the Exclusive Brethren to account for the meetings the cult had with National's Don Brash before embarking on a $1 million advertising campaign curiously targeting the Greens. National Party officials could also have been questioned over the circumstances that led them to fail to ensure GST was paid on its campaign advertising bills.

The justice and electoral reform committee will no doubt have plumbed rigorously lots of other relevant issues relating to the operations of a fair and proper election.

These will no doubt feature in the committee's report to parliament and will further fuel the furore.

Brash has finally lifted the temperature on the election funding scandal by accusing Prime Minister Helen Clark of "stealing the election" and calling for a fresh election.

Clark could, of course, call Brash's bluff. Her credibility is riding high with the electorate, despite the impact of the electoral spending scandal among denizens of Wellington's beltway, for whom this latest imbroglio is a step too far.

She consistently outrates Brash in the preferred Prime Minister stakes and Labour and National are reasonably well matched.

She won't, of course.

The only way Clark will be pushed into such a step is if the new Governor-General ultimately pulls down the house of cards by intervening, when and if, Labour combines with some parliamentary accomplices to validate their misappropriations of their party leaders' funds.