McCully Murray: General Debate 
McCully Murray: General Debate 
[Volume:633;Page:4785] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 On 28 April 2005 the Auditor-General of New Zealand an officer of this Parliament signed two letters. He signed a letter to the Prime Minister of this country and a letter to the Leader of the Opposition. The Auditor-General—the watchdog of public finances—had been investigating for many months attempts by the Labour Party to spend taxpayers’ money in the form of advertising under the heading Working for Families that he knew would intrude into the election process. The Auditor-General signed those two letters on 28 April because he wanted to blow the whistle and inform the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition of a way forward. The Auditor-General wrote to the Prime Minister that he considered it imperative before the election and before presenting the report to the House to seek some level of cross-party commitment to a reform process. 
The Leader of the Opposition received that letter and responded to the Auditor-General by saying that of course he would put a meeting time in his book and to come and talk to him. A few weeks later some very embarrassed officials from the Audit Office had to ring the office of the Leader of the Opposition to say that they did not need the meeting because the Prime Minister of New Zealand the great upholder of public values in this country refused to meet the Auditor-General. 
 The Prime Minister said: “No I will not meet the Auditor-General to discuss the report.” When one reads the report one can see why. The Auditor-General wanted to discuss this report with the Prime Minister. That report states: “It is a generally held principle that taxpayers do not pay for political parties’ publicity except for support of parties’ parliamentary activities or the conduct of ministerial business. This is broadly consistent with the accepted position in New Zealand that the State does not fund political parties.” That is the letter the Auditor-General wrote to the Prime Minister asking for a discussion. That is the reason the Prime Minister of this country told the Auditor-General to take a running jump. She told the Auditor-General that she refused to meet him. 
Members on this side had a pretty fair idea that she was going to be a bit embarrassed in the discussion anyway. We knew Labour had plans to spend $23 million of taxpayers’ money getting re-elected with the Working for Families publicity programme and other programmes of that type. But never never in our wildest dreams—or perhaps in our worst nightmares—did we believe that the Prime Minister even at that point when she received the letter from the Auditor-General had plans to spend half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money out of her leader’s budget which she was going to sign off and that was going to be unlawful expenditure within the meaning of the Public Finance Act. The Prime Minister of this country declined to meet the Auditor-General because she knew when she received the letter from him that she had already signed off on a plan to spend half a million bucks on the Labour Party illegal pledge card which is coming home to roost. 
The problem was it was all going swimmingly until of course Mr Henry came on the scene. Mr Henry signed off this letter on 2 September. He made it very clear to the Labour Party that firstly this was not an appropriate use of taxpayers’ money and secondly whatever the source of the money Labour had to declare it as an election expense under section 214B of the Electoral Act. Labour knew from that day as Mr Clarkson knew when he was told by the Auditor-General that his spending would be under scrutiny that it had to do something about it. Mr Clarkson faced with the same warning from the auditors said: “Oh no I won’t spend what I was planning to spend for the last few weeks of the campaign.” He obeyed the law. The Labour Party had the same warning from the same Auditor-General and what did it do? It went ahead and knowingly broke the law. Section 214B has a description for that conduct. It is called a corrupt practice. That is a corrupt practice as stated right there in section 214B.