PM defends Minister over rule-breaking bridge pledge

At the one-laned Kaeo Bridge on State Highway 10, from left, list MP Chris Bishop, Mark Osborne, Transport Minister Simon Bridges and Far North Mayor John Carter. Photo Supplied

Prime Minister John Key has defended Transport Minister Simon Bridges' use of officials to get information for a Northland byelection pledge, saying Labour had done worse in the past.

Mr Key said Mr Bridges had not breached Cabinet Manual rules which stipulate that ministers can not ask for information from officials for party political purposes.

Mr Bridges' office asked the NZ Transport Agency for information on the bridges and estimated costs of upgrading them prior to the byelection announcement that National would upgrade 10 one-way bridges.

Labour's leader Andrew Little said that was a clear breach of the rules for ministers' use of public officials and Mr Bridges should be sacked.

Mr Key said he did not believe it was a breach.

"My understanding is it's quite okay to ask for information. You're quite free to do that. The issue is whether you've got policy advice and Mr Bridges didn't do that."

Mr Key also claimed that in 2008 Labour had used both Treasury and Reserve Bank officials to formulate the deposit guarantee scheme that Labour announced at its campaign launch that year.

"That was a far more egregious thing. But asking for information, the advice I've had is that was fine."

The Cabinet Manual states that "any requests [ministers] make for advice or information from their officials is for the purposes of their portfolio responsibilities and not for party political purposes".

Mr Little said Mr Key was "dissembling" by differentiating between asking officials for information rather than advice in Mr Bridges' case.

"They were clearly lining up a party political announcement."

Mr Little said the deposit guarantee scheme was completely different to party policy for a campaign.

"It was dealing with a problem that had to be dealt with as a matter of urgency and it just happened to be during an election campaign.

"It wasn't a case of ministers going to Treasury and the Reserve Bank asking, it was Treasury and the Reserve Bank saying 'this is happening, you'd better do something.' It was done with cross-party consensus."

The scheme was aimed at protecting consumers in the collapse of banks and finance companies during the Global Financial Crisis. New Zealand was one of very few developed countries that had not introduced one and it was done to coincide with Australia's scheme.

In July 2005, when Labour announced its interest-free student loans scheme policy, it used its own costings and then-Prime Minister Helen Clark said in Parliament that Labour had not asked Treasury to forecast the long term impact of the policy because "this is a Labour Party policy, not a Government one".

Asked why she would not ask officials to cost it, she replied: "We do not expect officials to write Labour Party policies."

However, it later emerged that Treasury had costed the policy in June and its estimates were significantly higher than Labour's.

Dr Cullen had withheld those costings as well as a second set of revised costings he had requested.

The Ombudsman ordered him to release them just before the election in September. Labour disputed the assumptions Treasury had used.