Friday, 13 October 2006

What did Don spend parliamentary money on?

Labour is calling on National leader Don Brash to explain how the party paid for its election strategist, Bryan Sinclair, and what else National spent its leader’s office budget on during last year’s campaign.

Labour strategist Pete Hodgson says that National leader Don Brash spent all his parliamentary leader’s allocation in the three months leading up to the general election.

“What did he spend it on,” asks Mr Hodgson?

“The Auditor-General, for some reason, only examined what he deemed to be electioneering in the form of communication materials. He didn’t examine how parties might have spent their Parliamentary funding on any other forms of electioneering.

“The National Party hired Bryan Sinclair as a strategist for its election campaign. Dr Brash needs to explain how Mr Sinclair was paid. If he was paid from the leader’s budget, then that was clearly for electioneering purposes, as has been defined by the Auditor-General.

“If the money did not fund Mr Sinclair, who did it fund?

National Party sources are saying that Don Brash’s leader’s budget was spent on staff. Who were they, and what were they doing for the National Party?

“These are the questions Don Brash needs to answer today. A holier-than-thou response will not do. This is, after all, the man with prior form in that he and the Exclusive Brethren attempted to design a $1.2 million covert campaign to get around election expenditure attribution rules,” Pete Hodgson said.

ENDS

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