KEY POINTS:
Labour is backing a move by National to seek a court ruling clarifying whether expenses for parliamentary-approved advertising are exempt from the Electoral Finance Act.
Labour believes MPs' spending is exempt, but the Electoral Commission is not taking that view.
The result is that political parties at Parliament
have virtually ceased publication of the expensive glossy brochures and pamphlets that have become commonplace for all parties because they might have to count them against their election expenses return after the election.
Prime Minister Helen Clark told reporters it might be "useful" that National had sought a judicial review of Electoral Commission rulings in order to get clarity on what "parliamentary purpose" meant.
"I understand the Electoral Commission is taking a view of that which may be at variance with what members of Parliament understood the law to be," she said at the Labour Party conference in Wellington.
National is also challenging the Electoral Commission's ruling allowing a Labour Party-affiliated union, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, to be a registered third party during the campaign.
In separate proceedings, National will also file proceedings next week questioning the Electoral Commission's reasoning for not referring the Labour Party to the police after it became the first to breach its new election-
advertising law. That concerns a booklet, We're Making a Difference, printed and largely distributed by Labour last year using parliamentary funding.
Some were distributed this year, however, and because the Electoral Commission considered the content to be election advertising, it needed party authorisation, which it did not have.
In the first action, the National Party has filed papers in the High Court seeking a review of the commission's decision to allow the EPMU to become a third party. The union listing was stalled by an objection that it was too closely involved with the Labour Party's administration to qualify as one.
However, the Electoral Commission said that while the act prevented persons who were involved in the administration of a party from becoming third parties, that applied only to individuals rather than organisations or bodies.
On Monday National will also seek an interim ruling to prevent the union becoming a third party until the court case is heard.
National deputy leader Bill English said allowing groups so closely entwined with a political party effectively to be third parties effectively let them run "separate attack campaigns" for that party without their spending having to be included in the party's election cap.