D-Day

Today is D-Day for Labour. The Auditor-General’s final report is out at 2 pm and Labour’s stance is still a refusal to pay it back, even though retaining such a stance will be politically suicidal.

The NZ Herald editorial looks at how Labour will try and fudge the issue. An extract:

The least Labour can do when Kevin Brady’s final report is tabled today is offer to pay the money back. It would be heartening to hear also a public admission of guilt and regret but that seems unlikely. The Prime Minister and her colleagues will probably continue to maintain they used her departmental funds in good faith and that Mr Brady should have given them a clearer warning that they could not. The offer to repay the money will be a grudging concession to public opinion rather than a genuine realisation that what they did was wrong.

It was not “corruption”, as the National Party has been calling it, but it was something almost as bad. It was a complete disregard for the spirit of the rules. Labour read the rules literally to permit anything that did not expressly ask for votes or campaign contributions. It regarded any other campaign publicity as a fair call on the taxpayer. It is the attitude that public funds are to be exploited to the maximum rather than kept strictly for their intended purpose.

The editorial incidentially confuses the issue of the DPMC budget with the Labour Leader’s budget – it isn’t material to the debate, but it is something they should have picked up.

Audrey Young looks at what the Speaker may do, and concludes she is unlikely to require her fformer colleagues to pay the money back. That will need public pressure to achieve.

The Dominion Post editorial also repeats it call for Labour to pay the money back.