HEY BIG SPENDER!

The Green Party, the party that says 'less is more', certainly didn't apply that maxim to its election spending in 2008.

It spent a record $1,706,633 which Bryce Edwards points out, amounts to $10.73 a vote or $189,626 per parliamentary seat.

The Green Party spent more cash than Act.

The party's advertising campaign was devised by the Auckland advertising agency Special Group, which has also done work for Max fashion and Volvo cars.

The Green's spending had increased dramatically since 1990. In 1999 it spent only $280,000.

But as Edwards also points out, it doesn't seem to matter how much the party spends - it still ends up with about six percent of the vote.

Indeed having spent $1.7 million on its 2008 campaign, the election result was a disappointment for the Green's - with various party supporters speculating that it could end up with as many as 14 Green MP's.

The Green's campaign, a victory of style over substance, might have excited the advertising agencies and media pundits but it left the electorate largely unmoved.

Even hauling in various 'celebrities' didn't appear to help the Green cause.

Bryce Edwards also points out that the Green's have been using parliamantary funding for electioneering purposes. It owns up to spending some $187,000 of its parliamentary funding on election campaigning - although it was probably a lot more than this. Edwards comments that just 'one part of Green annual parliamentary funding, ‘Party & Members Support’ budget is about $864,000.'