Matt McCarten: Shocking how many parties had snouts deep in the trough

Although it will cost the Labour Party a small fortune, Helen Clark bit the bullet and made the right call over the election funding scandal. Labour was never going to be able to spin its way out of the Auditor-General's finding that they had inappropriately used more than $800,000 of taxpayers money to fund their election campaign.

Defending the spending has been a humiliating experience for Helen Clark. But give credit where credit is due. Clark has belatedly called it right. While I am sympathetic to her argument that they hadn't done anything illegal, the public was never going to buy into it. This was always an integrity issue, not a legal one. Clark finally realised that she had no choice on the matter.

If there is any real justice, of course, then the current Cabinet Ministers should be hit up for $40,000 a piece, rather than go begging to their poor old party members to cough up the loot. Given the very slender election result, it is arguable that without spending this money those Cabinet Ministers would be languishing on the opposition benches on half the salary they now enjoy - $40,000 is a cheap levy to have remained in their ministerial homes.

What is interesting, though, is the extent to which New Zealand First, United Future and the Greens also had their snouts in the trough and are still not admitting to anything. No wonder, when the report was first leaked, they were lining up behind Labour big time.

Winston Peters, predictably, has rushed off to his lawyers this week to find a way out of paying the money back. Probably the real reason he's not paying is because his party doesn't have any money. I suppose most of the $150,000 in election bills that NZ First ran up on the taxpayers account was to pay for those billboards of him at the beach. You remember. Those were the ones that had Winston look like he was trying to get poo off his shoes. I guess nothing has changed. Peter Dunne's pre-emptive strike earlier this week, graciously announcing that he would voluntarily pay $5000 back regardless of what the report said was tacky. He knew he was up for $70,000. The election funding scandal has revealed the clear sense of entitlement that many of our politicians have. This isn't unexpected, considering that the rules on spending are collectively made by the leaders of the parties. There has been no independent oversight and controls. Their disingenuous protestations that it was the job of the Parliamentary Service office to police spending won't wash with anyone who knows how Parliament works. If anyone from the Parliamentary Service office even attempts to question bills, they are subjected to indignation and a curt instruction from the Leader of transgressing party to pay the bill .

The only surprising reaction for me was from the Green Party. You'd think that the Greens would be the first in line, wringing their hands and apologising for their actions. Having Green MP Metiria Turei announcing that the Greens would only pay the money when it was found that they ultimately had to is perplexing as I understand that the Green caucus has already decided they will divide the outstanding bill between the MPs and pay it. I can only presume they are waiting to see if Peters' legal challenge can get them off the hook.

ACT must be relieved that it was only up for $20,000. A quick whip-around at their Friday night drinks, emptying out their loose change should fix up the bill. The Maori Party, I know, genuinely took their responsibility at the last election very seriously. Their $54 would have only been an oversight, which they paid back months ago when the Auditor-General first raised the matter. National, of course, has been smirking from ear to ear for weeks now. They cant believe their good luck in not being caught. Of course, it would be an interesting exercise if the Auditor-General went back more than three months. The National Party may well have found themselves in the dog box with the other offenders.

Its been a shameful exposé of our politicians actions in helping themselves to the public's money to pay their election expenses.

On another point, I got a call this week from Shale Chambers, the Leader of the centre-left Powerlynk ticket for the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust elections. While he was appreciative of my explanation in this column last Sunday of his track record in opposing the privatisation of Vector, he, in the interest of fair play, felt I should point out to HOS readers my error when I implied that one of the trustees Michael Buczkowski had supported the partial privatisation of Vector. This wasn't correct. Although his other right-wing C&R Now candidates did vote for the sale and therefore it compromises him, in my opinion, as unreliable when the question of any future proposal to sell the rest of Vector.

I also owe John Collinge a half apology as he wasn't allowed to vote on the partial sale of Vector at the time due to him having a conflict of interest. But in my opinion, if he was serious about opposing the privatisation of Vector, he could have simply removed this conflict of interest. This would have stopped the sale because it only went through by the Chairman's casting vote.

So postal ballots are out now don't forget to vote and send it back.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY