Corrupt government hobbled by their own laws

The Electoral Commission has rightly taken a very different view to that of the government 2IC and put him in his place.

Cullen sees it like this.

The Parliamentary Service Act governs what members of Parliament can spend money on. The Electoral Commission determines what is election advertising.

Matters that are properly authorised as being for parliamentary purposes do not count as election advertising for the returns of expenses.

The EC sees it like this.

unless a booklet such as We Are Making A Difference was being handed out by a Member of Parliament in their capacity as an MP, it would count towards election expenses.

Just because something is funded by Parliamentary Services does not automatically mean that exemption applies

Quite rightly so. We have seen many examples of expenditure authorised under the guise of Parliamentary spending that are blatant pamphleteering and written for procuring of votes.

So Liarbour has cocked up, too tricky for words. It is possibly to be the first one prosecuted under its own poorly written law which was put in place specifically as a vengeful measure to hobble the Opposition.

National's comment?

The nonsense about all this is that under the old rules anything that was an election advertisement counted, full stop.

Labour has tried to write the act so that you can spend public money on things that are - as the Electoral Commissioner said today - election advertisements but don't count for expenses

I smell a decaying rat and that rat is Liarbour. The ballon has gone up, so to speak. And speaking of balloons...