What the Police should have done

There are many things the Police should have done in this investigation. A few of them are:

* Ask for minutes of campaign meetings where the pledge card was discussed (in electoral petitions, campaign minutes are included as part of the evidence).

* Ascertain the full list of people involved in the decision making.

* Seek early legal advice on the Electoral Act vs the PSC internal rules.

* Investigate why the 2002 pledge card was authorised under the Act, rather than just accepting the statement it was done mistakenly.

* Ask Labour to account for all their discussions and decision making after the CEO first contacted them on 30 August 2005.

* Specifically inquire as to who was consulted on and agreed to the letter offering to include the pledge cards in the party’s election return.

* Actually investigate the Section 214B breach, not just Section 221!

* Inquire as to the knowledge of Labour’s campaign spending to date, when Mike Smith made the offer to include the pledge cards in the party’s election return.

The above is a minimum of what I would expect. Instead we got one charge not investigated at all, and the other dealt with by a few e-mails, a written list of questions and a couple of short meetings.