Ministers and former ministers credit card records were delivered to journalists this morning.Former Labour Minister Shane Jones has paid back about $5000 of wrongful spending already and his colleague Chris Carter said he had done some spending outside o
Ministers and former ministers credit card records were delivered to journalists this morning.
Former Labour Minister Shane Jones has paid back about $5000 of wrongful spending already and his colleague Chris Carter said he had done some spending outside of the rules but for small amounts.
That included a hotel movie for a staff member, another for himself, and use of a hotel spa by a staff member.
Thousands of documents which took officials four months to gather show what ministers used their credit cards for during the six years Labour was in office and the current Government's term up until February. They have been released under the Official Information Act.
Internal Affairs spokesman Allen Walley told NZPA the cost of the release was in excess of $50,000 and three staff had worked full-time on it since requests came in February, when the first release of credit card records for the National Government were made public.
The information had to be accessed, copied, collated and have privacy checks done.
About 14 sets of eight cartons of documents -- there are 7000 individual documents -- were delivered to parliamentary press gallery journalists at 9am.
The release covered from April 2003 until February this year, taking in much of the Labour Government's last term in office.
After the first release of statements Phil Heatley resigned in February from Cabinet after admitting he misused his credit card.
However he was reinstated after an Auditor-General's inquiry found that while he spent $1402 of taxpayers' money wrongly he did not intentionally break the rules.
The Auditor-General is currently working on a wider report about expenses.
NZPA understands any serious breaches or repeat rule breakers within Labour ranks will be treated seriously and individuals can expect a call from senior people in the party.
Mr Walley said a set of documents had been given to both Labour and National and of 21 former ministers who were no longer MPs, 11 had requested their information.
