Darnton vs Clark

There’s a story on Stuff this morning, $30 for Pledge Card - Only $824,970 To Go, which talks about two pledge card auctions on Trade Me. The first was Labour’s own auction, which received two bids and 1500 page views and during which the vendor refused to answer any of the buyers’ questions. The second was my auction to raise funds for this case, which so far has received 66 bids up to $425 and 32,000 page views and is still going.

The Herald on Sunday is reporting that some Labour MPs might not be able to afford the pledge card reparations bills that they’re about to be landed with.

South Auckland list MP David Hereora told the Herald on Sunday yesterday he was not sure whether he could pay the entire amount in one hit, and might have to look at some sort of time-payment arrangement. He was still working out what he afford to pay back and said “that may mean paying it off… it all depends on how rich or broke you are I suppose”.

If someone on $125,000 can’t scrape together $5k over the next six months then they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the country’s finances.

David Farrar has helpfully suggested that tax cuts might put a bit more much-needed cash into hard-up Labour members’ pockets.

It’s time to pay - in more ways than one. The Herald reports that Labour MPs will be forced to stump up for the pledge card and the rest of their outrageous thievery.

Labour’s 50 MPs will be asked for next week for $435,000 to pay for illegal election spending, which many blame on top Prime Ministerial adviser Heather Simpson.

The party reckons the whip-round will bring in the rest. A common theme of directing the blame at Heather Simpson seems to be emerging, although…

No MP who wants a future in the party would dare to publicly criticise Heather Simpson. She is “untouchable”, as one MP put it yesterday, because of the complete confidence Helen Clark has in her.

But if confidence in both Clark AND Simpson were to slip…

The knife is really put in by Fran O’Sullivan, also in the Herald, in her column Clark Damaged Goods After Battle of Helengrad. I won’t quotes bits of it - you have to go and read the whole thing. Go. Read it and enjoy.

And then bring on the firing squad.

There’s a pledge card for sale on Trade Me. Proceeds towards this case. Make a bid or just ask a question.

The New Zealand Herald editorial this morning lauds Auditor-General Kevin Brady as an honourable man who stands his ground.

Few public officials have performed their duties more bravely and honourably than the Auditor General, Kevin Brady, in investigating unlawful election spending by political parties. His report yesterday, confirming that all but one party in Parliament mis-spent taxpayers’ money promoting themselves in last year’s election campaign, was a powerful example of an independent watchdog standing up for the public.

and

It is hard to recall an instance of a public servant, an officer of Parliament no less, being subjected to the menace and derision heaped on Mr Brady since his draft view was leaked in mid-year. The Labour Party and its leader, Helen Clark, in particular, reacted with a venom that has been well documented…

and concludes

Without Mr Brady’s integrity, independence and fortitude, they might never have got to the bottom of what was, truly, a scandalous episode. His refusal to be cowed makes him a leading contender for any accolade of New Zealander of the Year, 2006.

Well done indeed, Mr Brady.

Labour has some fundraising to do, so if you’d like to buy an over-inflated balloon I’m sure Dr Cullen would be happy to separate you from your cash. It’s something he’s fairly adept at.

As a side note, that Parliamentary crest on the flag is fulfilling an important role communicating Labour’s policies (i.e., to spend your money against your will at every opportunity). No, that’s not right - it’s an optical illusion, it doesn’t exist. What are you talking about? Oh my God! Look at those weird religious people over there being all creepy and wearing funny clothes.

Michael Cullen has just confirmed, during this afternoon’s question time, that Labour will pay back the money they misappropriated.

UPDATE: Labour’s press release.

Now it’s time to get on with the apologies and the firings of those responsible. As the Speaker notes in her report, paying the money back doesn’t make its spending any less illegal.

Interesting to note that the Prime Minister is not in the House, letting Michael Cullen take the heat as so often happens when there’s trouble in the air.

The Office of the Speaker has released the Speaker’s response to the Auditor-General’s report. The document is available at the Office of the Speaker’s site.

The attendant press release is also available.

The Speaker says there “appeared to have been a genuine misunderstanding” and that there is “no evidence of any intention not to comply”.

The primary recommendation from the Speaker is for “validating” legislation and follows this up by saying that “reinbursement is not required and nor is it normal or common practice.”

The Auditor-General’s report has been released. Details and download are available at the AG’s site.

Amounts found to be outside the appropriation:

The Herald has an editorial today, in anticipation of the release of the Auditor-General’s report, called How Labour Might Fudge the Issue.

It discusses how Labour has manufactured a “problem” with election funding under which to hide their blatant thieving of public money to fund their propaganda. The editorial suggests that Labour will set up some sort of committee to figure out where the lines between government information and political propaganda are, fail to do so, and that the conclusion will be public funding for everything.

The public, though, should not fall for it. Fair-minded people could easily agree on the distinction. It is easy to recognise advertising that is intended to promote a public service rather than the political interest of its sponsors. We do not need to sacrifice information services, or pay for political parties’ election pitches, for the sake of Labour’s deserved embarrassment today.

State funding of political parties would be a travesty. The idea that Labour can be caught up to their elbows in the till to the tune of eight hundred thousand dollars and that the answer to this is to reward them with a couple of million is so outrageously offensive it beggars belief that anyone could seriously suggest it.

Note: The Herald website now has a useful summary page for all of their stories on the pledge card saga.

Don Brash and Gerry Brownlee were on the offensive in Parliament yesterday using information released as part of this case. The Prime Minister refused to answer questions around the authorisation of the pledge card expenditure and Heather Simpson’s role in that authorisation.

She then refused to take responsibility for any of Heather Simpson’s actions, saying that she doesn’t get involved in the details of the administration of her office. PC asks, “Does it mean the spin cycle has now reached the ‘Hung Out To Dry’ stage, and H2 will be the one chosen to twist in the wind?”.

The Office of the Clerk has the full transcript of the exchange.

According to former Progressives MP Matt Robson, quoted in today’s Herald, sticking to the appropriation rules for the spending of members’ funds was easy. To their great credit, the Progressives are the only party not to have misspent any of their parliamentary funds on electioneering.

Mr Robson said the Progressives followed one clear rule: Not to put out anything with parliamentary money that said “vote for me”.

“It didn’t have to be those three words; it could be anything which was akin to that. It was just like breathing.

“I didn’t have to have a law degree to know the difference between money in your own pocket and somebody else’s.”

And if there ever were any grey areas,

Mr Robson said there was a designated person in Mr Anderton’s office, former adviser Andrew Ladley, who ensured all material was within the rules and, if there was any doubt, it was checked with the Auditor-General.

If the Progressives (who in their hearts probably don’t even believe in private property) can keep their hands out of other people’s pockets then surely the others should be able to figure it out.

The Labour Party has amended its defence.

Download: Labour’s Statement of Defence as amended 28th September (PDF, 451 kB).

The changes are all minor, generally expanding of points that were made in the original defence by adding references to other documents, e.g., the Parliamentary Service’s Statement of Intent.

The Herald has reported on the adjournment of yesterday’s hearing.

Parliament’s Speaker Margaret Wilson has delayed proceedings in a private legal challenge against Labour’s pledge card until Auditor-General Kevin Brady has delivered his report on the matter to Parliament.

A hearing date for the private challenge, being taken by Libertarianz leader Bernard Darnton, was to have been set yesterday. But Margaret Wilson’s lawyer, Jack Hodder, has sought a four-week delay so that she can absorb Mr Brady’s conclusions before filing her defence in the private action.

There has been some concern expressed that Margaret Wilson may be in a difficult spot with her job as speaker requiring her to pass judgement on Labour’s pledge card spending. Helen Clark isn’t concerned:

Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday dismissed any suggestion that Margaret Wilson, a former party president who also played a central role in Labour’s election campaign, might be conflicted if she has to decide what to do with the report.

“I think it is important to uphold the integrity of the position of the Speaker. The Speaker will be taking her own advice on how to proceed when she receives the final report and as far as I’m concerned, she is a person of integrity who will act with integrity and fully recognising the responsibilities she has as Speaker.”

The report concludes by saying that I will drop the case if Labour admits breaking the law. To clarify, this was in response to a question about whether I would drop the case if Labour paid back the money. The short answer was, “No,” but my expansion on that might have caused this misunderstanding.

My position is that paying back the money isn’t enough. This case is about the fact that the government is not above the law and I want Labour to accept that. If Labour admits the misappropriation I won’t drop the case but it will certainly come to a conclusion a lot more quickly.

Just a day after Hodgson admitted something we all know, that Labour’s pledge card was electioneering (and therefore, by extension, an illegal misappropriation), the New Zealand Herald reveals that Phil Goff has broken ranks and has been privately negotiating with the Auditor-General over his electorate spending. This goes directly against orders by Heather Simpson to maintain a united front and tough it out.

Both admissions are signals that Labour’s strategy, the handling of which is already the subject of division within the party, is fraying and indicates heated discussions in caucus tomorrow are likely.

…

Mr Goff confirmed yesterday he had written to Mr Brady to contest the findings in relation to his own electorate spending and indicated he had been successful.

I look forward to a raucous caucus tomorrow and hope that Goff’s success may encourage others to break ranks as well, rather than go down with the ship. The Labour caucus has been ruled with an iron fist for so long now, it should be very entertaining to see what it looks like when the Prime Minister loses control.

The Sunday Star-Times reports today that master strategist Pete Hodgson has decided (presumably out of desperation) to employ the strategy of telling the truth.

Hodgson told the Sunday Star-Times from Australia last week that if asked what it thought of the pledge card, “the public would say that it is clearly for political purposes - and for Christ’s sake, of course it is, you know?

“If it wasn’t we would put out a pledge card the day after the election not before it.”

Asked if that meant it was electioneering, he said, “Yes.”

Good. Now that we’ve got that sorted out can we get on with the refund and the resignations please.

There has been a four-week adjornment in the case. There was supposed to be a hearing on Monday 2nd October but that has been adjourned until Monday 30th October at the request of the Speaker.

The Speaker has requested the opportunity to consider the Auditor-General’s report before confirming her defence.

Audrey Young has a useful summary of questions around the pledge cards in this morning’s New Zealand Herald. It covers Parliament’s rules for spending the leader’s funds, how the rules are administered, how they’ve changed, and what the Auditor-General’s report is all about.

She describes the pledge card row as “the most complicated and charged issue to have visited Parliament since the foreshore and seabed decision”. Another example of the government laying its sticky fingers on something that didn’t belong to them.

Stuff reports this morning that

Labour’s plans to change the law to legalise the use of taxpayer funds for electioneering are unravelling fast after NZ First appeared to join parties lining up against the move.

Winston Peters said,

“We have the capacity to pay, we will pay, but when we know what we’re paying and why we’re paying it,” he told Radio New Zealand.

This is very good news. Retrospective legislation really would have shown that the government considers itself above the law and made a mockery of any supposed constitutional limits on government.

Labour seriously needs to rethink its arrogant, aggressive stance. The latest Herald-Digipoll survey shows that 52% of the population think it was right for Don Brash to call Labour “corrupt”. Worse for Labour is that 28% of Labour supporters think it was OK for Don Brash to call Labour “corrupt”. While a minority, it is a significant figure supporting a very serious charge.

There is a gap appearing between rank-and-file Labour supporters and their power-crazed elite and any up-and-coming Labour members who want there to be a viable Labour party in the near future would do well to consider the damage being done at the head.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has just released a remake of the Rolling Stones classic “Paint It Black” as, you guessed it, “Pay It Back”.