Labour overspending continued

In a lame spin attempt Labour Party President Mike Williams has said on TV One that he is pleased to have the issue investigated so they can get some clarification. How-ever the issue has always been very clear.

You see in both 1999 and 2002 the Labour Party included the cost of their pledge cards as election expenses. This has not been an area of great ambiguity. Have a look at the Electoral Act Section 214B.

Specifically 1(c) which says “encourages or persuades or appears to encourage or persuade voters to vote for the party” – and tell me that one can claim a pledge card could not be included.

To make it worse for Labour they were warned before the election numerous times that the pledge cards and other taxpayer funded material should be included in their return. Now a sensible party does what Bob Clarkson does when it becomes clear your spending is under scrutiny. Just to be safe you restrict your spending so you are safe even if the interpretation goes against you.

Labour made a very deliberate and calculated decision to reclassify pledge cards as not being included as expenses. They were warned numerous times about this and chose not to keep their other spending down to compensate.