That's the only way to describe the Electoral Commission's decision that Labour has breached the Electoral Finance Act by not having a proper promoter statement on their "we're making a difference" booklet. Having gone to such efforts to pass the law, the least they could do is comply with it. This time round, they're getting a warning - the Electoral Commission is more interested in education and compliance than prosecution for prosecutions' sake. But I don't think anyone will be getting off so lightly in the future.
Also in the gun is ACT, who distributed a similar booklet ("Not your typical party") at their annual conference. Currently, the Electoral Commission is waiting for advice from Crown Law on whether giving a booklet to a journalist at a party event constitutes "publication" (the legal question is whether journalists acting in that role are "members of the public"); if it does, then it would definitely qualify as an election advertisement.
Much is being made of the fact that both booklets are "taxpayer funded" and paid for from the parties' Parliamentary Services budget. But so they should be. As I have said before, informing the public of what you have been doing on their behalf is part of an MP's (and by extension, a Parliamentary party's) job. While Parliament rightly forbids the explicit solicitation of votes, members or money, Parliamentary funding rules are not electoral law, and its perfectly possible for material which falls within those rules to be considered an election advertisement under the EFA. The EFA recognises this, and so to prevent MPs from being penalised for doing their jobs, it excludes material produced by a candidate "in his or her capacity as a member of Parliament" (which nevertheless may be an "election advertisement") from the definition of candidate or party activity and thus the calculation of expenses. And that's the interesting question here: not the lazy gotcha of "MPs are making taxpayer funded election advertising" (which relies on public ignorance of the political system, and public hatred of politicians), but "is that advertising an electoral expense"? Because if it is, then all Parliamentary parties are going to have significant problems this election cycle, and there will almost certainly need to be amendments to clarify the law.
