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.
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