Labour targets Hide's budget

Rodney Hide

Labour is looking at filing a petition claiming Act leader Rodney Hide overspent his campaign budget in Epsom.

But Mr Hide has rejected any suggestion he blew his $20,000 electorate campaign budget, saying: "There's no limit to the lengths Helen Clark will go to knock me out of Parliament".

Labour Party president Mike Williams said yesterday: "We are looking into this matter, we have made no decision."

There would be no particular electoral advantage to Labour filing the electoral petition with the High Court "except that people have to be deterred from this wild overspending, which he clearly did".

If a case were taken to the High Court and it found Mr Hide had overspent, it would trigger a byelection.

That would likely result in a National win in the traditional blue- ribbon seat, but under electoral laws would not eliminate Act list MP Heather Roy, who got back into Parliament on the back of Mr Hide's win, he said.

This would still leave the centre-right with the same number of votes - 50 - it now holds.

Mr Williams said he had been anonymously sent a copy of an email sent to Act supporters by Mr Hide on August 27.

It was an urgent request for financial help

It said: "We're getting a very strong and favourable reaction when we are able to get our message across but that takes money. If I had the money I would use our computerised state-of-the-art call centres to ring every centre-right voter in the country. Each call costs around $2. Right now I really need $500,000 but every dollar makes a difference."

Mr Williams said voters throughout Epsom got the calls - in which they were engaged in a conversation asking them to vote for Mr Hide.

There were 10,881 households with phones in the electorate, so at $2 a pop "he's over the limit well before he's even distributed a single pamphlet or bought a single advertisement".

Automated phone messages - worth about 20 cents each - may well have added another $2000.

Once the cost of billboards and leaflet drops - and Mr Hide had done about three at a probable cost of around $3000 each - were added he would be well over the limit, Mr Williams believed.

Other political sources who refused to be named raised further concerns about Mr Hide's electorate spending.

They said television and radio advertising for the party included specific encouragement for Epsom voters to support Mr Hide, which had to be calculated in.

There were also allegations of satellite phone calls to the electorate from the United States and paying professionals to fix billboards.

One anonymous caller suggested Epsom calls had been made from Christchurch call centres and charged to the party's campaign budget. Mr Hide said the calls made in Epsom had been done by volunteers and "cost next to nothing".

"I'm right within the rules.

"I know Helen Clark does not like me in Parliament, but she should learn to live within the rules."

As his campaign spending had not been made public - all MPs have six months to do so - he found it hard to see how the allegations could be made.

National's Epsom candidate, Richard Worth, who fought a bitter campaign with Mr Hide for the seat, said: "It's my understanding that National does not propose to challenge the alleged overspend in Epsom and that is because there is no strategic advantage".