What if the AG Report came out before the six month limit?

Now the Auditor General has ruled that a lot of material distributed during the election period was too political so should not have been funded from public money. If upheld, then the spending will need to be

In the weeks preceding the election I recieved the following items through the mailbox with the Parliamentary Crest:

• Two copies of "Trev's Tribune" - a eight page newspaper updating the electorate on Trevor Mallard's work in Parliament.
• A Pen and Fridge Magnet.
• A copy of "Labour Matters" - a four page newspaper updating how Labour's policies were benefiting Hutt South.

According to his electoral return, Trevor Mallard only spent $5000 defending his seat, so I doubt that if the costs of the publications and promotional items were included he would get near the $20,000 limit on candidate spending.

However, given the pattern of taxpayer funded items seems to have been repeated in a number of electorates then the following MPs may have been in trouble if they were included:

MP	Electorate	Declared
Darren Hughes	Otaki	$14,821
Chris Carter	Te Atatu	$16,284
Clayton Cosgrove	Waimakariri	$16,085
Marion Hobbs	Wellington Central	$17,931
Damien O'Connor	West Coast/Tasman	$18,221

For National, Nick Smith and Wayne Mapp spent within $2000 of the $20,000 limit. If they were among the National MPs who have repaid Parliamentary Services their new total could have breached the total spending limit as well. (But that's conjecture as National haven't revealed the MPs or amounts.)

However, unless the AG or the Parties reveal how much each MP should have paid for themselves, we may never know what the real returns should have been.

UPDATE: Rodney Hide spent $17,236 in Epsom and Jim Anderton spent $15,355 in Wigram - although I don't know what material either distributed out of their Parliamentary Budgets.