Police say Banks aide in the clear

Brian Nicolle, the campaign manager for former Auckland City mayor John Banks, has been cleared of any wrongdoing for his part in distributing a series of newspaper articles about mayoral candidate Dick Hubbard before last year's local body elections.

The police investigated a complaint by Mr Hubbard, who went on to beat Mr Banks, and found there was no evidence of an offence being committed under the Local Electoral Act. No further action is planned.

Mr Hubbard lodged the complaint after the return of electoral expenses and donations showed that Mr Banks did not claim expenses for Mr Nicolle or the distribution of the National Business Review articles.

An earlier complaint alleging Mr Nicolle contravened the act by sending out unauthorised material designed to denigrate Mr Hubbard and increase Mr Banks' re-election chances was rejected by police for lack of evidence.

Speaking about the latest complaint, Detective Sergeant Andrew Saunders, of Auckland City police, said that while Mr Nicolle arranged for the distribution of the articles he [Mr Saunders] did not believe that was an offence under the act.

The act says "no person may publish or cause to be published" election material to promote a candidate unless it is authorised in writing by the candidate or the candidate's agent. The NBR articles contained no authorisation. Offenders could face a fine of $1000.

Mr Saunders said all Mr Nicolle had done was to copy an already published article. He had not added to it in any way.

Another part of the latest complaint that Mr Banks' electoral expense return should have included the cost of printing and distribution of the articles contained no evidence it was paid for out of the campaign fund and Mr Banks had no knowledge of it, Mr Saunders said.

Mr Banks has repeatedly said he knew nothing about the reprinting and distribution of the articles. Mr Nicolle, who resigned as Mr Banks' campaign manager after admitting he "facilitated the distribution" of the articles, has never said who paid for the articles. Mr Hubbard had called the series a "hatchet job".

Mr Nicolle's resignation followed Herald reports of about $10,000 in cash being handed over to a Blockhouse Bay printer to produce 30,000 copies of the newspaper articles and about an Indian man handing over cash to a Sandringham delivery company and saying "you boys just deliver it".

Mr Saunders said people were interviewed as part of the police inquiry but he would not say who they were or the nature of the discussions. The inquiry did not include legal advice, he said.

Mr Nicolle could not be reached yesterday but Act leader Rodney Hide said he was pleased that his friend and "Act stalwart" Brian Nicolle had been cleared. Mr Nicolle now works in Mr Hide's parliamentary office and has worked for Act on election campaigns.

"The shame of it is that Mayor Hubbard chose to attack Brian Nicolle during the campaign, involve the police, and to continue his personal vendetta after the campaign when clearly no law had been broken," Mr Hide said.

Mr Hubbard said he wanted to take legal advice about the police response before commenting.