By AUDREY YOUNG
Alliance MPs who have stopped paying into a party fund should think about the list selection process coming up next year, party councillor Dave Macpherson warned last night.
MPs had pledged to pay into the fund when they signed up to be candidates and the last MP to break the pledge was Alamein Kopu, he said.
The seven who had stopped paying had done so as part of a "victimisation" of president Matt McCarten.
Three MPs are continuing to contribute.
Mr Macpherson said the party council could not force the seven to tithe 10 per cent of their salaries to the fund. But non-selection was the ultimate sanction.
"We can't legally change it, just like we couldn't legally force Alamein Kopu to resign. But there is list selection coming up next year.
"I think it will all be sorted out before then but ultimately the only sanction is to not have them again."
The seven Alliance MPs agreed to a request by party leader Jim Anderton to divert their tithings to a caucus fund instead of the fund of more than $100,000 annually from which Mr McCarten is paid.
Mr Macpherson, also a Hamilton City councillor, dismissed suggestions that something was wrong with the party accounts.
Every party council meeting was updated on the accounts and no problems had been raised in five years. Accounts were not presented to the conference because they were a matter for the council.
Mr Anderton said yesterday that the stop on funds was to send a clear message.
"I want some accounting for what's happened. I haven't had it yet. Hopefully I'll get it by the time of the Alliance council meeting [December 8].
"This is a message, that's all, that it's not all one-way traffic here."
He questioned whether he and Mr McCarten, who formed NewLabour together in 1989, still shared the same goals.
Mana Motuhake leader Willie Jackson, who continues to pay into the party fund, said next week's caucus meeting had to put in place a process of reconciliation between Mr Anderton and Mr McCarten.
Without reconciliation the party would not survive.
Mr Jackson said Mr McCarten was being subjected to innuendo and character assassination over management of the party.
"I am stunned that we have not initiated a fair process.
"We are a party that talks about supporting the underdog.
"What the hell are we doing here? There is a character assassination going on with Matt that I find totally intolerable."
Next Tuesday's caucus meeting would be the most important in Alliance history, he said.
"I want reconciliation between Matt and Jim. It is absolutely imperative for the party's future that we go down that line."
Minister Laila Harre, another of three MPs who have refused Mr Anderton's request to stop contributing to the party fund, said it was time for the Alliance to sort out its problems in its own forums.
She also said she did not have leadership aspirations.
Ms Harre told Today Live on TVNZ: "I don't have leadership aspirations actually. I am part of a leadership already.
"The Alliance has given good leadership over the last 10 years to a whole lot of important causes.
"The Alliance is full of great, solid and committed people.
"I know that despite the issues around our stability internally people will refocus very quickly on the main game."
Democrats leader John Wright, an Anderton loyalist, would not say whether he thought Mr McCarten should resign but said the president had once said that "depending on the performance of the party, his job was on the line".
"He made the statement, not me."
He said membership and money were the "essentials" of party.
Asked what state they were in, Mr Wright said: "You should ask Matt that."
Anderton seven risk backlash on list selection
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