If D vs C is sussessful then H1 and H2 will have to resign.

At which point no amount of money will do anything.

Yes you are right if the money had not been spent on the pledge card then it would have been spent on sometime else. You correctly state that the funds would have been used anyway. Thus it is impossible to conclude that the taxpayer has lost anything.

If you have a beef about whether the pledge card was an electoral activity then you (or anyone else) were free to file an electoral petition at the time of the last election that would have got indirectly to the characterisation of the spend for Electoral Act purposes. The pledge card was not in Labour’s previous two returns so even if their lastest return wasn’t available the prudent thing to do was to file. You would be an ignoramus not to assume that they would do the same this time. Filing electoral petitions in advance of the filing of a Party or candidate returns of donations and expenses is not usual. Indeed this is probably would have been what Peters had to do in the Tauranga Electoral Petition.

Returning to Labour reimbursing wrongly or mistakenly used members support allocation, if you assert that any reimbursement for wrongful or mistaken breach of the rules results in a complete loss of the funds, then this would be inconsistent with all other previous practice. In the past when expenses have been paid by a member then that money is available for expenditure on those things that comply with the rules.

If you are suggesting that Labour forfeit the worth of the pledge cards entirely then the rules will be hard to enforce. Even more so if the judge in Darnton v Clark finds that it has supervisory jurisdiction, then any decision by the Speaker instructing Parliamentary Service to forfeit the refunded sum could find its way into Court on a judicial review. If indeed the Speaker is exercising a statutory power in this regard then she will probably be required to exercise in a similar manner as it has been done before. If Darnton v Clark is successful it may permit Labour to re-spend any reimbursed funds. If it is unsuccessful then it would be up to a direction from the Speaker. I guess in this case she would act consistently with previous practice – although who knows.

As far as the taxpayer not being disadvantaged, that is subjective rubbish.

I’ve lost count of the number of times that this Labour-led Government has passed legislation under the pretext of “clarifying” the law or, worse, retrospectively “fixing” the law – the “Harry Deynhoven” amendment comes to mind.

Here, the A-G has turned his mind to the rulebook and is “clarifying” how it should be applied. It’s disingenious in the extreme (though, sadly, perhaps not unprecedented) to attack an independent officer of Parliament for doing his job. But Mr Brady is no shoehorn and I doubt he’s intimidated.

Labour’s position ultimately comes down to this: it’s most unfair of the A-G to “reinterpret” the rulebook after the 2005 election when no issue was taken with the same practices in 2002.

To which I say:

(1) the precise circumstances, as now known to the A-G, perhaps weren’t known to him back in 2002;

(2) the information in the public domain makes it abundantly clear that Labour refused to engage with the A-G before the election;

(3) that same information shows that Labour was on notice that various authorities had concerns about its proposed election spending; and

(4) the current court proceedings will quite possibly result in a declaration one way or the other (assuming they aren’t discontinued or otherwise settled, unlikely as that may be). This does put the A-G in a slightly difficult position, though, as his report will apparently be finalised in the meantime – just in time for the next lively parliamentary session.

The fact that Winston Peters was only yesterday attacking the A-G reinforces in my mind that the A-G should be left to finalise his report. Then we can have a sensible debate about whether the A-G’s interpretation of the rulebook, and its supporting reasoning, can be substantiated.

Helen Clark is not corrupt

So I guess when Greens & Maori party abstrain from the confidence vote over corruption, ACT will be voting with … the government.

the fact remains any allegation that the pledge cards are electoral activities of Labour or that the Brethren activities where done with the authority of the National party will never been known.

No, once again these issues are all known. In particular, the Chief Electoral Officer – the key independent watchdog in this area – said Labour was guilty of a corrupt practice and National was not.

At that point, the Labour cabinet should have resigned. That they ignored the constitutional conventions of this country is what has got us all into this mess.

Were you just looking for differences rostock or did you have a point?

I reiterate my original point: a person who sprays around defamatory content, as “Dad4Justice” was doing, tends to hide behind the cloak of anonymity. I merely suggested that “Dad4Justice” might wish to make a more constructive contribution to this thread. As it happens, this was precisely why DPF banned PhillipJohn earlier today.

As for your other deflection ruse, oh yes, I’m to Peter Davis as you are to Graham Capill.

The following article explains why I sent my email to Mallard.

Here are the facts.

If Mr Mallard had not threatened to dish the dirt about National MPs’ personal lives none of this would have happened AND if Helen did not think she was above the law and not talked about legislating around the Auditor Generals final report not of this would happened.

BTW- Graham how do we know you are not Peter Davis?
Election spending behind Davis pic release
24 September 2006

The man who gave a magazine images of Prime Minister Helen Clark’s husband being embraced by a man on election night says his main motivation was the election spending issue.
But Chuck Bird said today that he also wanted to stop Labour from “blackmailing political parties”.
“My message to Miss Clark is: pay back the money,” he said, referring to the $446,000 of taxpayer’s funds it spent on its election pledge card.
Mr Bird passed on the images to Investigate magazine, saying he had got them from a contact.
They show Mr Clark’s husband, Peter Davis, being hugged and apparently kissed by a man identified by the Sunday Star-Times last week as Auckland GP Ian Scott.
Dr Scott told the newspaper that, while he was gay, Dr Davis was not.
Meanwhile, Miss Clark accused her opponents of trying to attack her husband with baseless, “school boy smutty rumours”.
Mr Bird said people could interpret the pictures however they wanted.
He said he decided on his action after Labour frontbencher Trevor Mallard alluded in Parliament to an alleged affair between National leader Don Brash and Business Roundtable deputy chairwoman Diane Foreman.
Mr Mallard then threatened to dish the dirt about National MPs’ personal lives.
Mr Bird said he issued an implied threat of his own by sending an E-mail to Mr Mallard asking him “who’s the dude in the blue suit that’s kissing Helen’s husband?”
While Mr Bird, 62, has been associated with the men’s rights group Menz and also opposed what he described as gay militants, he said he acted alone when he contacted Investigate.
“It was an individual act,” he said.
“I’m taking responsibility for it. I’m not dragging in another group or a political party.”

Pay it back AND call a snap election

Whether you have a high or low opinion of Winston Peters, the fact remains any allegation that the pledge cards are electoral activities of Labour or that the Brethren activities where done with the authority of the National party will never been known.

They will remain just that: allegations.

Of course this a different question from whether what the Parties did that the Auditor General says is not in accord with the rules covering the use of these resources is indeed against those rules or some statutory provision.

For clarity one should not mix them together.

If National wants some clarity on the pledge cards and Labour some clarity on the Brethren activity under the Electoral Act they could refer these matters to a Royal Commission on Electoral Matters with Commision of Inquiry powers on these questions.

Clearly however National should consider whether it is advisable that its own members and members of the Exclusive Brethren could be summoned and asked to provide evidence under oath. Likewise Labour should consider whether those involved in the pledge card issue are similarily summoned.

It would be interesting to see whether Labour or National are brave enough to propose this.

I note that Chuck Bird, who’s currently banned from Kiwiblog for a month, has links with the men’s rights movement: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/0,2106,3807117a6442,00.html. I don’t suppose Dad4Justice and Chuck Bird are one and the same?

The point is that Winston has very strong views on it when it effects his own electorate but sides with the Govt when it’s … in his own best interest?

Look either the man has principals and thinks all over spending should be tested in court or he hasn’t. Why is he still poodle to the Govt when it has stated very publicly that it sees no need to discuss it further, move on.