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Government ministers Phillida Bunkle and Marian Hobbs have been cleared of claims they received expenses they should not have.
An official investigation has found they were eligible for out-of-town allowances despite being registered on the Wellington Central Electoral Roll.
Bunkle moved out of her ministerial apartment on Wellington's Oriental Parade just before Christmas, amid the row over allowances.
"I feel vindicated and I'm very pleased the report has cleared me of any wrong-doing," she said on Friday.
Hobbs, who admitted claiming the allowance when campaigning for Wellington Central while still based in Christchurch, says: "I feel totally justified and honest in how I behaved."
The report, released on Friday by the Parliamentary Service and the Higher Salaries Commission, does say the rules surrounding out-of-town allowances could be tightened.
It suggests new guidelines to: "prevent an MP from being able to maintain a primary place of residence outside of Wellington, where the MP has declared Wellington to be their place of residence for Electoral Act purposes."
At issue is whether the two MPs were entitled to claim out-of-town allowances worth up to $16,000 a year to subsidise Wellington accommodation.
Neither MP will say how much they actually claim. Both were on the Wellington Central Electoral Roll while campaigning in the electorate, yet registered as out-of-town MPs when it came to parliamentary allowances.
Bunkle says she lived in Waikanae while also owning an inner-city cottage and Hobbs claimed she lived in Christchurch.
Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton is happy with the outcome of the report.
"Anything that has been approved after serious consideration by the relevant authorities is not only legally proper, it's quite morally proper," he says.
But Prime Minister Helen Clark is not happy.
"My personal view is that people shouldn't be enrolling in Wellington and then taking an out-of-town allowance."
National Party MP Roger Sowry says the internal report has no credibility. He says both MPs knew "what they were doing was not within the spirit of the rules."
Bunkle says the rules are difficult and left her in the position of looking as if she had done something wrong. She says she wants the rules cleared up so that it does not happen again.
The National Party is asking the Auditor General to investigate and the ACT Party is also not satisfied.
"If they really are confident that they are correct then they'd be referring it to Crown Law," says ACT leader Richard Prebble.
