Sort out election rules or I will, watchdog tells MPs

MPs were warned yesterday that if they fail to tidy up messy election spending rules, the Auditor-General will do it for them.

Auditor-General Kevin Brady said he had been reluctantly drawn into looking at election spending rules because of numerous complaints, and would not allow the problem to come back to haunt him again.

"I am desperately hoping that parliamentarians will pick up the challenge and sort out the rules so there are no concerns at the next election," Mr Brady told the finance select committee.

"If it doesn't happen and if I have to respond to complaints next election, before that happens I will have to set the rules. But it's not what I want to do, but I need to have some framework."

Mr Brady said that as well as a complaint about Labour's use of its Leaders Fund to pay for its pledge card, there had been numerous other complaints.

Act MP Rodney Hide asked if it was difficult for Mr Brady to investigate his "political masters".

Mr Brady said he wished it was someone else's problem. "To be perfectly honest it was an issue that I would rather have nothing to do with and if I thought someone else could have done it, I would have left it to them."

Mr Brady brought furious questions from Mr Hide when he suggested that his inquiry into complaints might not necessarily say whether Labour's spending broke the rules, but could just look at wider issues.

He "hoped" his report would make a judgment on whether Labour's spending had broken the rules.

Mr Hide said Mr Brady appeared to be making very slow progress, but Mr Brady said he was doing a proper job alongside a police inquiry.

"It could be some months ... I am not just looking at a particular incidence, but all incidences."

Mr Brady pointed out that MPs were not quick to respond to the problems raised by spending rules.

He had raised some of his concerns in a report to Parliament last year and he asked the committee: "what has happened to that?"

Crown Law will next week advise police on whether Labour should be prosecuted over claims it overspent on election advertising. Police will make the final decision.

The Opposition has attacked Labour for using $446,000 of taxpayer money from Prime Minister Helen Clark's leader's budget for the party's election pledge card.

The police are also investigating National and the minor parties over aspects of their campaign funding, including the use of their leader's funds for promotional material.

A campaign run by the Exclusive Brethren before the election is also under police scrutiny, due to complaints from Labour.

- NZPA