Media Statement

Thursday 19 October 2006

The big whip around

Labour Party President Mike Williams is backing the Prime Minister’s call to refund the money ruled by the Auditor-General to have been wrongly spent on communications in the 2005 general election campaign.

He says while the Labour Party believes its spending in the lead up to the election was within the rules at the time, he says now it’s time to clean the slate so New Zealanders can have faith in the integrity of the democratic process.

“We will refund the taxpayer what was spent. We will do it in the time-honoured Labour way, as a collective, in a big whip around, with everybody chipping in.”

Mr Williams says all Labour MPs and constituent organisations in the Party will be asked to contribute to the refund.

He says other people of good will can chip in to the whip around by sending a cheque to the Labour Party PO Box 784 Wellington or they can go on line to the Labour website www.labour.org.nz or
http://www.thebigwhiparound.com/ or they can call 0900 LABOUR to make a $10 donation from their phone bill.

ENDS

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