Background Image courtesy of Nick Minto, Copyright 2024 Nick Minto; photographed November 6, 2024, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

In this episode Paul and Selwyn discuss:

• Why Democrats Lost: Incumbency, Elitism, Class & Alienation, Identity Politics…
• Why Trump Won: Anti-Establishment, Populism, Avatar for the Alienated…
• What to Expect Next: Trump Appointments, Isolationism, Geopolitical Impact & Response…

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE: Paul and Selwyn encourage interaction while live, and encourage their audience to lodge comments and questions. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel and click on notification-bell for an alert for future programmes.

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/c/EveningReport/

Background image: courtesy of and Copyright Nick Minto 2024. Image taken November 6 2024, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

RECOGNITION: The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication. Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category.

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The Trump Assassination Attempt, Security Failures, The Politics and What Happens Next? – Firstly, in this episode of A View from Afar, political scientist and former Pentagon analyst, Dr Paul Buchanan, provides us a preliminary assessment of the assassination attempt on former United States president Donald Trump. And then Paul and Selwyn assess what impact this crime will have on the US Presidential election campaign.

At this juncture, it’s important to be clear, to achieve a robust analysis of the crime that occurred while Trump was speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, it will require a thorough assessment of eye witness accounts, details of the supposed gunman, his background, associations, potential motivations – and importantly a deep assessment of the role of the security agencies.

To determine a clear and probable account of what happened in Pennsylvania this weekend, we would need all of that information, and then to apply it against any variances and/or avoidances by those involved or associated with investigating the events. But clearly, much of that information is not yet available to us.

However, there is enough information for us to consider a preliminary assessment of how satisfactory, or otherwise, the security arrangements were for Trump at this rally.

So, with that said; today Paul and Selwyn examine:

• How could an assassin get inside a security parameter, and in to a position with direct line of sight to his target Donald Trump?
• And specifically, while the gunman was outside the immediate venue, it would appear the shooter’s location was within the security parameters, a position obvious to him as a prime area, with direct line of sight to his intended target.
• So why wouldn’t that fact be obvious to the US security services who were responsible for ensuring the parameters were safe and clear?
• And, importantly too, what are the political implications of this assassination attempt?
• For example; does this assassination attempt accentuate Trump’s mythology as an invincible born to rule leader? And as such, draw contrast to the incumbent US President Joe Biden’s frailty?

In this regard, Paul and Selwyn assess what is likely to happen next?

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE:

Paul and Selwyn encourage their live audience to interact while they are live with questions and comments.

To interact during the live recording of this podcast, go to Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/

Remember to subscribe to the channel.

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• Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/
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• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

RECOGNITION: The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication. Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category.

You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them.

The political parties are legally obliged to make declarations about the donations they’ve received each year. They pass this information on to the Electoral Commission, and the donations from the 2023 year have now been published on the Commission’s website.

Below are the aggregated total donations for each party elected to Parliament last year. The total donations received by these parliamentary parties were nearly $25m. Of this total, the parties of the new government (National, Act, and NZ First) received 16.5m, and the parties of the Opposition (Labour, Greens, Te Pati Māori) received the lesser amount of about $8.2m.

Total donations

Huge totals of donations received

National has declared a total of $10.4m of donations for the 2023 election year – which has captured media headlines about the release of the donations declarations. Journalists reporting on this have used the terms: “staggering” (Stuff), “enormous” (Newshub), and “massive” (The Herald and Newsroom).

The $10.4m raised is indeed significant and illustrative of just how popular the National Party is at the moment with wealthy individuals and companies. However, some caution is also required in the interpretation. For example, some reports have compared the $10.4m figure with smaller totals that National have received in the past, suggesting a significant increase in funding for National. But this is a case of apples being compared to oranges.

The reporting rules have changed significantly for the 2023 election-year donations. Whereas previously, the parties were legally required to declare donations of $15,000 or more, this threshold has now been considerably lowered to include any donations over $5000. This means National’s donation reporting captures many more donations than in the past.

Furthermore, parties also now have to report on the quantum of donations received that are below the declaration threshold. For 2023, National has declared about $6m of below-$5000 donations. The larger donations only make up about $4m, or about 40 per cent, of National’s declaration.

The $10.4m raised by National is still highly significant and note-worthy. However, there should also be caution with the claim made in the media in the last few days that this figure is the largest ever received by a party in New Zealand’s political history. It’s worth noting that at the 1987 general election, the Labour Party of David Lange and Roger Douglas received about $3.5m in donations. When this figure is translated into 2023 dollars, it’s about the same as National received last year.

Large donations

The 2023 election year certainly contained quite a few huge donations from wealthy individuals and companies. By far the biggest was the $500,000 donated to National by business owner Warren Lewis. Although this has been reported to be the largest recorded donation given to a political party, back in 2005, businessman Owen Glenn infamously gave $500,000 to the Labour Party.

The second-largest donation was $200,000 given by property developer Mark Wyborn to New Zealand First.

National also received a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings, which is owned by Guemsoon Shim and Lian Seng Buen. However, the records state that this was received on 10 August last year, but it was then returned to the donor on 23 August – the same day that the donors were in the news for a story about the Auckland Council and Tenancy Services investigating alleged unlawful tenancy management in one of their buildings.

The table below lists the biggest donations received.

Large donations

While the above table includes all the donations of $100,000 or more, it’s also worth noting the amount of lesser amounts. Taking an arbitrary threshold of $20,000, the following table shows how many medium-sized donations the parties have received.

It’s also useful to look at how many large donations each party received. If you take an arbitrary threshold such as $20,000, the list below shows how many large donations above this figure were received by each party.

Once again, of these 131 medium-sized donations, most have gone to the parties of the new government (101), and few have gone to the parties in opposition (30).

Medium donations

Donations under $5000

In the past, parties only had to declare donations over a certain threshold (which has been $15,000 in recent years). But now parties also must account for donations under $5000. Rather than detailing each donation and the identities of the donors, the parties simply declare how many such donations they have received and what the aggregated amount of money is. The total number of sub-$5000 donations received by each party is below.

Small donations

The donations below $5000 appear to make up the vast bulk of money received by the parties. As already mentioned, 60 per cent of National’s donation income in 2023 came from these smaller donations, and for some of the other parties, it is even higher. Interestingly, the parties of the opposition, in particular, have received more of the smaller donations (88,253) than those of the government parties (53,397).

Anonymous donations

Political parties’ ability to receive anonymous donations has been clamped down. Parties can now only receive such donations in two highly regulated ways.

Firstly, parties are only allowed to accept anonymous donations of less than $1500. The table below shows how many such donations each party received in 2023 and the total amounts of these donations for each party.

Anonymous donations

Donations can also now be given anonymously to political parties by sending the money to the Electoral Commission, which then passes the money onto the parties without any identities attached. These are called “Protected donations”, and the Electoral Commission is only allowed to distribute a maximum of $373,520 to any one party in a year. Below is the list of protected donations passed onto the parties.

In 2023, there were only eight such donations, six of which went to National, totalling $363,000 (just below the allowable limit). NZ First and Act received one protected donation each. This information can be seen in the table below.

Protected disclosure donations

MP donations

Parties raise much of their income from MPs’ high parliamentary salaries. Some parties, traditional on the left, have a “tithing” rule in which roughly ten per cent of their MP or Ministerial salaries are donated to the party.

Such tithing didn’t always appear in the Electoral Commission records – because, in the past, when the threshold for disclosure was higher, many of the MP tithing amounts were lower than needed to be declared. But in 2023, all the tithes for Labour and Green MPs were published. See the table below for the biggest MP levies in 2023.

MP donations

Donations from election candidates

The records of donations released by the Electoral Commission include some curious donors – the candidates themselves running for Parliament. It’s pretty standard for party organisations to raise money to give to candidates to help their local election campaigns, but in this case, some of the candidates have also been making donations to the head office.

The most prominent example in the table below is the $50,000 given to Te Pati Māori by list candidate John Tamihere, however in his case, he’s also the President of the party. Just as Tamihere didn’t make it into Parliament, National’s Auckland Central candidate Muralidhar Mahesh – who donated $37,199 – also missed out, along with TOP donor-candidate Ben Wylie-van Eerd ($6098). More successful were Jenny Marcroft ($32,000) for NZ First, Vanessa Weenink ($26,357) for National, Tanya Unkovich ($5970), and Karen Chhour ($5200) for Act.

[ Donations from candidates

Donations from former politicians

It’s normal for political parties to seek extra fundraising from former MPs, especially those in retirement who might have accumulated decent fortunes from their time in politics and afterwards. While the example in the table below of Clayton Cosgrove’s consultancy firm giving $6000 to NZ First is the smallest, it’s possibly the most interesting, given that Cosgrove is a retired Labour MP.

[ Ex-MP donations

Loans to political parties

Although donations to parties have been regulated for decades, the loans provided to politicians have often flown under the radar, even though such loans have in the past been written off. Loans can often turn into donations, so they are now required to be disclosed. But in 2023, only two loans were disclosed, and they were both given to the NZ First party from the families of candidates—see the table below.

Loans to parties

Donors giving to multiple parties

Several donors have given to more than one political party. Clearly, some donors wish to support many different parties on the same side of the political spectrum. Hence, New Zealand’s richest man, Graeme Hart and his company The Rank Group, gave $204,000 to Act (in separate donations), $150,000 to National, and $110,000 to NZ First – all totalling $464,000.

Another Richlister, Trevor Farmer, gave $115,000 to Act, $100,000 to National, and another $50,000 to NZ First.

AJR Finance has only given to two of the new Government coalition partners: $55,000 to NZ First and $20,000 to National.

Another company, Christopher & Banks, gave National and Act $100,000 each. The private equity firm is run by Christopher Huljich, who gave National another $10,000.

Property developers Christopher and Michaela Meehan have given $103,260 to National and another $50,000 to Act. Similarly, Wellington’s Chris Parkin gave $24,500 to National and $10,000 to Act.

Wellington businessman Troy Bowker – a previous donor to Labour’s Stuart Nash – gave $15,000 to Act and $10,000 to NZ First.

On the left, gym company boss Phillip Mills gave $50,000 both to Labour and the Greens. Similarly, property developer Mark Todd gave $50,000 to Labour and $20,000 to the Greens.

Donating to more than one party

Housing property donations

A large number of donors appear to be involved in the housing and property development industry. These donations have featured particularly strongly in the declarations from the parties now in government.

The largest donation of the year – $500,000 from Warren Lewis – is not directly involved in property but the wider construction industry. Lewis’ business, FMI Building Innovations, is described as a “building systems and materials supplier”.

Various property developers have made some large donations. For example, Mark Wyborn has given $200,000 to NZ First and $24,000 to National. His business partner Trevor Farmer has given $115,000 to Act and $100,000 to National.

Property developer Winton is partly owned by CEO Chris Meehan and his wife Michaela Meehan. Together, they donated $103,260 to the National Party in 2023. In addition, Chris Meehan donated $50,000 to Act. Christchurch property investor Philip Carter donated $59,500 to National.

One of the largest private developers in New Zealand, Manson TCLM, is partly owned by Culum Manson, who gave $70,000 to National. Real estate boss Garth Barfoot, a long-time National donor, gave $20,000. National received a further $22,000 from Auckland commercial landlord Andrew Krukziener, who also donated $19,999 to NZ First.

NZ First also received $145,000 from Wellington property developer Vlad Barbalich.

One of the more interesting property developers, Ockham Residential, appears to have hedged its bets with political donations. Owner Mark Todd gave $50,000 to Labour and $20,000 to the Greens. The company’s Chief Executive, William Deihl, gave a further $20,500 to National.

Housing donations

Mismatch between donations and spending

The $25m declared in donations by the parties in Parliament for 2023 was obviously used for fighting that year’s general election. However, caution must be taken when comparing the donations and expenditures declared to the Electoral Commission.

At first glance, there might appear to be a major discrepancy between the funding and expenditures. For example, National declared $10.4m in donations but only spent about $3.6m. Labour spent more than this ($4.8m) despite declaring a smaller amount of donations.

The two figures aren’t immediately comparable. First, the spending figures only relate to the 12 weeks before polling day, whereas parties generally spend money on campaigning throughout the year.

Secondly, the spending figures only account for money spent on paid advertising. There are plenty of other party and election expenditures that aren’t captured by the legal declarations – such as money spent on staff and opinion polling.

Further columns will dive deeper into this and look at the donations received by individual parties.

Dr Bryce Edwards

Political Analyst in Residence, Director of the Democracy Project, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington

This article can be republished for free under a Creative Commons copyright-free license. Attributions should include a link to the Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)

Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)

Elections in the United States are dominated by big money. But what isn’t commonly understood is that most of it is raised and spent, not by the political parties and candidates for office, but by special interest groups who run their own election campaigns to influence the outcome.

Billions of dollars are channelled into campaign groups to run what are normally attack ads against politicians. The reason for this is because the political donations rules are designed to encourage this – with big clampdowns on people funding the politicians, but allowing them to more easily give to advocacy and lobbying groups instead.

This is a trend that is finally starting to occur in New Zealand. As the rules tighten on money going to candidates and political parties, this is pushing the big money towards less regulated and less transparent special interests. Critics call this “dark money” or “soft money” because it’s outside of the party system and therefore more difficult for officials and the public to scrutinise.

As with the US, such groups are incentivised to run negative attack campaigns, because if they run positive campaigns in support of a party or candidate, then that spending has to be allocated against the expenditure limits of the politicians, who also need to sign off their agreement with the campaigns (which they never want to do).

Dark money spent in the 2023 general election

Some of the money spent by campaign lobby groups must be declared. The Electoral Commission has just published the declarations of those organisations that spent more than $100,000 on advertising at the last election. However, there are many ways that “dark money” spending can stay below the threshold, and so most lobby group campaigning isn’t captured by the Electoral Commission.

The amount spent by these so-called “Third-Party promoters” has escalated quickly in recent elections. At the 2020 election, only $147,000 was spent. This increased by 13 times in 2023, with nearly $2m being declared. You can view all the declarations here: Registered promoter expenses for the 2023 General Election

The top spender lobby groups were the following, in order of money spent:

1. Vote for Better Limited: $386,515
2. New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union: $371,565
3. New Zealand Council of Trade Unions – Te Kauae Kaimahi: $299,344
4. Hobson’s Pledge: $283,899
5. Family First New Zealand: $204,771
6. The Better NZ Trust: $266,069.39
7. Groundswell NZ: $283,899

Lobby group spending dominated by the political right

This big spending list is dominated by rightwing campaigners – with only the CTU and Better NZ Trust being aligned with the leftwing parties. The latter carried out a campaign promoting policies to enable greater electric vehicle uptake. It’s unclear who funded the group, but previously they had listed one of their supporters as being Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority (EECA) – a government agency – which led to allegations that they were a “sock puppet” group. And the CTU ran an attack campaign against Christopher Luxon, with advertisements saying he couldn’t be trusted.

On the right, there was a real mix of socially and fiscally conservative lobby groups. The biggest spender was the mysterious Vote for Better group, run by businessman Tim Barry, whose main interests are in the horse racing industry.

The next biggest spender was the Taxpayers’ Union, run by director Jordan Williams, which ran anti-Government campaigns, mostly focusing on extravagant spending. Some of the TU’s declared advertising expenses were paid to The Campaign Company, which is also owned by director Jordan Williams. The Campaign Company was also contracted to several other lobby groups – such as Groundswell and Hobson’s Pledge. The company was also employed by electorate candidates, such as NZ First’s Casey Costello.

Some of this is covered today by Farah Hancock’s very good RNZ report, $2m surge in election campaign spending by third-party groups. In this she raises whether some groups such as Hobson’s Pledge have been involved in “astro-turfing”, in which elite well-funded campaigns are passed off as grassroots movements. She also draws attention to the increasing amounts being spent by the conservative groups – Hobson’s Pledge increased their spend from $254,115 in 2017 to $283,899 last year, and Family First went from $141,224 in 2020 to $204,771 in 2023.

There were 31 “third party promoters” that were registered with the Electoral Commission because they were planning to spend significant amounts of election advertising, but 26 of these didn’t make a declaration, presumably because they say they didn’t spend above the $100,000 threshold that necessitates one.

RNZ’s Farah Hancock has also investigated some of these groups. One appears to have been politically successful in its objectives: “The Natural Health Alliance encouraged voters to choose NZ First to get the Therapeutic Products Act repealed. It ran several full-page advertisements in the New Zealand Herald. Chairperson Paddy Fahy indicated these cost close to $10,000 each. Repealing the Act formed part of National’s coalition agreements with NZ First and ACT and is included in the government’s 100-day plan.”

While we know some of what these campaign groups have spent money on, it’s difficult to discover where they raised their money from. Although New Zealand’s political donations rules keep tightening up – and some scholars think they should be tightened significantly more – this has merely pushed the big money into these more mysterious groups, who don’t need to disclose their funding. This trend is only likely to worsen. And because such groups are incentivized to run campaigns against political parties (because the rules discourage them from campaigning in favour of parties or candidates), New Zealand is likely to go further down the route of elections dominated by Americanised attack advertising funded by dark money.

Fights between left and right activists about such dark money are likely to escalate. The Labour Party’s Greg Presland, who is also a part owner in corporate lobbying-PR-consulting firm Polis Consulting Group, has been drawing attention to the funding of groups on the right, asking questions about the rightwing Vote for Better Limited, which was the biggest campaigner last year – see: About the promoters electoral returns

Here’s his key point about this campaign run by businessman Tim Barry: “There is nothing to suggest that he is a well healed individual who is deeply upset with the direction of the last Government and the thought struck me what if he was paid by someone to do all of this? What if he was instructed by a Fisheries Company or an Oil Company or a fundamentalist American Christian Church or the Atlas Network for that purpose to do his best to undermine confidence in the left during the election campaign? The problem with the promoter rules is there is no obligation for them to say who they were paid by. And it can be an overseas person or corporation.”

Other political donations scrutinised

Newsroom’s Jonathan Milne has also drawn attention to a big mining company that appears to have successfully influenced an election race on West Coast last year. He has been investigating the spending of $32,600 by Bathurst Resources to bankroll the campaign of an Independent candidate at last year’s election, which is said to have been a decisive factor in leading to Labour’s Damien O’Connor losing to National’s Maureen Pugh – see: Big coal company bought West Coast election campaign

The mining company was opposed to the Government’s mining policies, and so funded the contest of independent candidate Patrick Phelps who was campaigning for more mining on the West Coast. Phelps is the manager of Minerals West Coast Trust, which last year was given $220,000 by various mining companies.

The donation from Bathurst Resources meant Phelps was the biggest spending candidate, and according to various sources was able to pull enough votes off O’Connor to let National win the seat – something that the Bathurst Resources company also boasts about.

The experience has made Labour’s O’Connor even more critical of the role of the wealthy in the political process: “There are many international companies and organisations wanting to influence New Zealand elections for their own purposes – the smoking industry, the investment and real estate industry as we’re starting to see. And there’ll be many more… I think what people have to do is follow the money, ask the question: why such investments would be made? And for the most part, no business makes an investment without some realistic expectation of a return.”

The big fundraising and spending electoral candidates

The Electoral Commission released the donations and expenditure declarations of all electorate candidates last week, which means the public has a better understanding of the money being used by politicians at the local level. Below are some of the top figures from these declarations, detailing whether they were successful in their campaigns.

The top ten donation recipients:

1. Siva Kilari, National, Manurewa – unsuccessful: $110,483
2. Mahesh Muralidhar, National, Auckland Central – unsuccessful: $109,496
3. Shane Jones, National, Northland – unsuccessful: $95,524
4. Chlöe Swarbrick, Greens, Auckland Central – successful: $95,023
5. Chris Bishop, National, Hutt South – successful: $98,549
6. Cameron Brewer, National, Upper Harbour – successful: $86,659
7. Tim Costley, National, Ōtaki – successful: $79,679
8. Hamish Campbell, National, Ilam – successful: $70,677
9. Scott Sheeran, National, Wellington Central – unsuccessful: $64,260
10. Catherine Wedd, National, Tuktuki – successful: $61,920

The top ten election advertising spenders:

1. Scotty Bright, Democracy NZ, Port Waikato – unsuccessful: $41,905
2. Rachel Boyack, Labour, Nelson – successful: $32,560
3. Julie Anne Genter, Greens, Rongotai – successful: $32,554
4. Raf Manji, TOP, Ilam – unsuccessful: $32,502
5. Tim Costley, National, Ōtaki – successful: $32,089
6. Chlöe Swarbrick, Greens, Auckland Central – successful: $31,643
7. Dana Kirkpatrick, National, East Coast – successful: $31,565
8. Cameron Brewer, National, Upper Harbour – successful: $31,243
9. Katie Nimon, National, Napier – successful: $31,191
10. Carlos Cheung, National, Mt Roskill – successful: $31,072

Some of this information is also available today in Glenn McConnell’s very good Stuff article, The politicians who were flush with cash and broke the bank campaigning

Dr Bryce Edwards

Political Analyst in Residence, Director of the Democracy Project, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington

This article can be republished for free under a Creative Commons copyright-free license. Attributions should include a link to the Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)

As the National Party gets closer to government, lobbyists and business interests will be lining up for influence and to get policies adopted. It’s therefore in the public interest to have much more scrutiny and transparency about potential conflicts of interests that might arise.

One of the key individuals of influence in National is former Cabinet Minister and now businessman, Steven Joyce. His continued sway with National and various business interests is a useful case study in how New Zealand politics works.

Steven Joyce – Minister of Everything, and now Adviser on Everything?

Steven Joyce is a figure who continually comes up as key to much of National’s policy development. He has fingers in many pies, and is close to decision-makers in National. So, if you want to know what the new government is going to do, it’s instructive to keep an eye on Joyce’s business activities and lobbying.

Joyce, of course, has been a major figure in National for the last two decades. He led the restructuring of the party in the Don Brash years, and then ran National’s election campaigns from 2005 to 2017. Upon entering Parliament in 2008 he was instantly appointed as a Cabinet Minister, and eventually became Minister of Finance (as well as becoming known as The Minister of Everything and Mr Fixit).

His time in politics was not uncontroversial. Joyce was criticised for an approach that many saw amounted to cronyism – especially because of his deal with SkyCity to build Auckland’s convention centre – and was sometimes compared to Robert Muldoon in his pragmatism and style. Once John Key and Bill English departed, Joyce ran for the leadership but lost out to Simon Bridges, which led to his resignation from Parliament in 2018.

Joyce had been a businessman before entering politics, and returned to this in 2018, setting up Joyce Advisory, a company specialising in business strategy, consultancy, brand management and reputation. In addition to this, Joyce has been appointed to and employed by an array of businesses, from property development through to engineering. Some of these clients have developed close relationships with the National Party under leader Christopher Luxon.

Joyce has also stayed extremely close to his old party, and has obviously remained influential – especially in terms of policy development. According to some party insiders, National’s lack of policy development has made Joyce’s advice invaluable in helping fill the void.

Winton property developers

The most politically controversial business Joyce has joined is the major property developer Winton, a company that is currently locked in a legal battle with the Government. Winton claims Kāinga Ora is stymying its “Sunfield” development plans in South Auckland by not giving the company a fast-tracked development under the new Urban Development Act. In appointing Joyce, the company put out a press release to say that Joyce “has not been appointed for government relations or political lobbying.”

The company is associated with some big donations to the National Party. Back in May 2022 the party received $52,000 from a holding company called Speargrass, which is owned by Winton’s CEO Chris Meehan. This year Meehan has donated $103,260 to National and $50,000 to Act.

National and Act have both come out publicly this year in favour of Winton in their fight with Kāinga Ora, with the parties’ respective housing spokespeople Chris Bishop and Brooke van Velden issuing press releases pushing Winton’s case.

National had already received the first donation when Bishop went public with his support for Winton, but he failed to declare this. In fact, Bishop later told Newsroom that he wasn’t aware of the big donations and could not give further comments due to Winton’s court case. He also told Newsroom that there was no conflict of interest, and any question of whether the property developer would get a meeting with an incoming National prime minister was an issue for after the election campaign.

National’s foreign buyer tax policy

When National announced that its new tax policy would involve a partial abolition of Labour’s ban on house sales to foreign buyers, political commentator Matthew Hooton suggested in the Herald that, “incredibly”, the policy had been created “with the help of lobbyists” for “the property-development industries”.

Certainly, property companies would stand to benefit from National’s new policy as, if implemented, all properties worth over $2m could be sold to foreign buyers, increasing the market and demand for the houses being sold by property developers.

This week Hooton has expanded on his claim that National designed the policy with the help of property developers, pointing to Winton and its close relationship with National, and suggesting that property developers have been able to help shape National’s housing-tax policies. Hooton says, “It may well be that National has thought through its tax policy much more carefully than it has been given credit for.”

He points out that the new policy could raise a lot of tax revenue and profit: “If Winton, say, sold 5000 residences for $2m+ over four years to foreign buyers, that alone would raise half the $20b of houses and apartments National needs to make its books balance. And, of course, some would be worth more than $2m. Some of the properties Winton has in its pipeline are planned to be sold for $10m+.”

Hooton therefore suggests that with a change of government, and a new minister in charge of Kāinga Ora and housing, there might well be a law change and the green light given to property developers to proceed with high-end developments.

Waikato University’s work with National

National has also released its tertiary education policy, including the promise to create a new $300m medical training school at Waikato University. The party worked closely with the University, and particularly its vice-chancellor Neil Quigley, to come up with the policy. The University even helped pay for National’s announcement, and Quigley emailed Health Spokesperson Shane Reti to say the policy could be “a present” to a future National government.

RNZ’s Guyon Espiner has uncovered how closely the University and National Party worked together on the policy development, and how Steven Joyce’s consultancy company Joyce Advisory was paid nearly a million dollars for helping with “lobbying advice” on such issues. On top of this, one of Joyce’s former Beehive political advisors, Anna Lillis, was contracted to sell the policy.

Espiner notes that Labour-aligned lobbyist Neale Jones has previously been employed by Waikato University to try to get the Labour Government to pay for a new medical school. But Joyce essentially took over this work from Jones, helping get the policy adopted by National instead.

SkyCity’s deals with National

National’s latest tax policy included trying to squeeze tax out of the foreign gambling websites that sell their services to New Zealanders. National has been upfront in stating that the SkyCity Casino advised on this policy. A confidential report from SkyCity was used by National to pull together the figures suggesting that $176m per year could be raised in tax.

National’s tax policy would also benefit SkyCity, because a tax on foreign gambling sites would reduce the competitiveness of their opponents and, in some cases, it might mean those offshore websites will be blocked from operating in this country.

Of course, the National Party has a long-running association with SkyCity. The last National Government negotiated a deal with the casino operators to build a convention centre for Auckland in exchange for concessions on the tight regulations on the number of SkyCity casino tables and pokie machines. The deal was partly brokered by Steven Joyce when he was Minister of Economic Development.

Joyce’s influence in National and business

Steven Joyce has become a useful nexus between National and the business community, which means he is able to help advise on policy for the party that bolsters their credibility with captains of industry.

It helps that Joyce is still very close to many in National. Chris Bishop, for example, has always been a close ally of Joyce, starting as an adviser for Joyce when he was a Cabinet Minister. Now a senior member of the National caucus, Bishop is chairing National’s election campaign.

Joyce used to run National’s campaigns, and his right-hand person was another former Beehive adviser Jo de Joux, who was his campaign manager. She is now a lobbyist, but has come back to run the party’s campaign in 2023, and is said to still be very close to Joyce.

As well as giving “lobbying advice” to Waikato University, Joyce is now on the University’s Management School Business Advisory Board. Of course, this is also useful and unsurprising given he’s a former Minister for tertiary education. He also writes regularly for the media about tertiary education policy, adding to his influence in this area.

As well as becoming a director of the Winton property company, Joyce has joined other company boards – Icehouse Ventures (a venture capital fund manager), Hammerforce (a technology and IP company), and RCP (a property and construction project management consultancy).

Time for more scrutiny of National-Business relationships

The roles played by these businesses or individuals advising National are to be expected in a liberal capitalist democracy. And individuals such as Steven Joyce or National’s business donors should be allowed to pursue the agendas of their companies and political parties.

However, it is imperative that these relationships are heavily scrutinised. At the moment much of the election campaign is lightweight and hollowed out. More focus on the influences behind the policies and those who are set to benefit from them would be beneficial to public debate and an informed electorate.

This is especially the case for National, which looks almost certain to lead the next government. Matthew Hooton is well-placed to comment on some of this, having experience as a lobbyist as well as a National Party spin-doctor and insider. He wrote yesterday in his regular email newsletter on politics that “National promises a ‘full economic plan’ in the next day or so. It will likely consist of another set of random bullet points gathered together from lobbyists and industry associations, similar to the ‘business growth agenda’ brochures of the Key years.”

If National’s policies are being created by or with the help of vested interests, then the public would be advantaged by knowing about these details. Leaving this until after the election might be too late.

It has been six months now, but I have to make a strange admission. I miss the laughs I used to get over the pseudo-authoritative pronouncements of Fiji’s former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum (pictured).

I recall that he got a bit over-excited in January this year. That was when he decided to lecture the new government on “constitutionalism” and “rule of law”.

This was apparently without any reflection on how he and his FijiFirst party government had performed by the rule of law standards on which he was pontificating.

But in the last few days he decided to debate Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica on the FijiFirst party’s 2022 financial accounts, apparently insisting that FFP was not insolvent.

This was never going to be an equal contest. Kamikamica is a chartered accountant. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, well — he isn’t.

You don’t need to be an accountant to read a balance sheet — or to understand the simple definition of insolvency.

It’s not hard. You are insolvent if you “cannot pay your debts as they fall due”. You can find the accounts of all the main political parties on the Fiji Elections Office website.

More cash than others
FFP’s balance sheet (see image) says it has cash and term deposits of more than $270,000 in the bank.

That’s pretty good. It’s actually more cash than all the other political parties combined. But FFP also has debts (called, in accountant-speak, “payables and accruals”).

These come to well over $1.6 million. Once you add and subtract all the smaller stuff, FFP is left with net liabilities of just over $1 million.

In other words, that’s $1 million that FFP, even if it sold everything it owns, still could not pay to its creditors.

That $1.6 million in debts “fell due” months ago. And FFP could not pay them as they fell due. So FFP is insolvent.

Why pretend otherwise? Luckily for FFP, there isn’t a simple legal way for a creditor to wind up a political party for not paying its debts. Presumably FFP’s unpaid suppliers have learned that bitter lesson a bit late.

Learning lessons
But we are all learning lessons about FFP. Six months ago it was all-powerful. Its leaders sat in taxpayer-funded government offices and did (pretty much) whatever they wanted.

They regularly lectured the rest of us on all of our failings and all the things we were doing wrong. They exuded competence. Fast forward to June 2023.

The same FFP — which previously ran a government that spends $4 billion a year — had been suspended because it couldn’t prepare its own accounts on time.

The deadline for submitting political party accounts is March 31 each year. That’s in the Political Parties Act. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum presumably knew that because, after all, he “wrote the law”.

FFP’s accounts were not submitted by March 31. The Acting Supervisor of Elections (in stark contrast to her predecessor) did not fire off a suspension letter one day later.

She gave FFP (and some other political parties) an extension of time to put in their accounts. Six weeks later, FFP still had not filed its accounts.

And at that point even the most reasonable supervisor is entitled to be annoyed. That was when the suspension letter went out. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s reaction at the time was the usual legalistic bluster unsupported by the facts. FijiFirst, he said, had not been afforded “due process and natural justice”.

Failed to meet deadline
He did not elaborate. And what could he say? His party had been given a six-week extension of time and still not met the deadline under the law he had himself drafted. And then we found out.

FFP was deeply in debt — and presumably too embarrassed to tell the rest of us. If it hadn’t been suspended, we would probably still not know.

What else can we learn from the accounts of the former ruling party? We can see from its balance sheet that it began 2022 with (cash and term deposits) more than $860,000 in the bank.

That’s the sort of money other politicians could only dream of. At that time the People’s Alliance and National Federation Party, between them, had less than $20,000.

However FijiFirst then went on to spend $4.2 million — or more accurately, it ran up debts of that amount, and now it has to find $1.6m to pay off those debts.

That is because FFP raised only $2.2 million in donations. I say “only” — but that $2.2 million was twice as much as the three parties now in government could collect.

More lessons
There are other, bigger, lessons to learn from all of this — lessons about money and politics. What was FFP thinking as it threw around the cash in the 2022 election campaign?

Who would spend $1.6 million they didn’t have? The answer — a party that thought that, as long as it could win, the cash would keep rolling in.

No political party in Fiji’s history has ever had millions of dollars to spend.

And no political party in Fiji has ever cashed in on its political power as cynically as FFP did in the past 10 years. It was FFP that made the laws on electoral funding for political parties.

Companies were not allowed to contribute — only individuals and only up to $10,000 each. All donors had to be publicly disclosed — this included someone who put $2 in a bucket during a soli.

SODELPA leader Viliame Gavoka famously commented on how the laws required his party to issue a receipt for selling a $1 roti parcel. FFP of course, did not have to bother with the small stuff.

Soli? Roti parcels? Why bother when you can just wait for the $10,000 cheques? And the cheques rolled in — with embarrassing enthusiasm.

Early donor lists
Many of us saw the early FFP donor lists when they were published. Prominent business families fell over themselves to write their $10,000 cheques.

Of course, these cheques were from “individuals”. Those individuals were company directors, their spouses and even their under-age children, even if those children (and probably some of the spouses) didn’t have bank accounts to write cheques from.

You would hear from other, less enthusiastic, business people about invitations to FFP fund-raisers. You went — and you took your chequebook with you — because if you didn’t, well…

One business man complained to me: “If I pay, I get to talk to them — but they don’t do anything about my business problems anyway.”

Fiji is not the first country to encounter unhealthy problems about money and politics.

These create challenges in every democracy. In Fiji’s so-called “true democracy”, the rules about who donated money were supposed to be transparent.

The Political Parties Act originally required the Supervisor of Elections to publish the names of people who donated to political parties. But as FFP’s donors squirmed with discomfort under the spotlight of social media, in 2021 FFP quietly changed the law — buried, of course, in one of those Bills that would be rushed to Parliament on two days’ notice and rushed through the infamous Standing Order 51.

The law change meant that those party donor lists still had to be disclosed to the Supervisor of Elections — but the Supervisor no longer had to publish them in the newspapers.

Climate of political fear
Of course, in the climate of political fear that FFP actively promoted, that created a separate problem.

The ruling party always collects the millions. But the opposition parties would have to work much harder to collect their cash because no one with any serious money wanted to be identified on those disclosure lists as giving money to the opposition.

Because, even though the Supervisor of Elections no longer had to publish those lists, any member of the public could still inspect them.

Most Fiji citizens might not know that. But the one person who would know that was the general secretary of FFP — also the minister for elections, attorney-general and minister for economy.

Now, however, for the first time since 2014, we can do something about our money-and-politics laws.

Those laws need to be reviewed, with a strong eye on the lessons of the past.

But the most critical lesson is probably not about those laws. It is about the climate of fear that enabled one political party to raise millions of dollars to keep itself in power while keeping all of its opponents out of cash.

Some good news?
Finally, for diehard FijiFirst supporters — a small spot of good news in those accounts. Apparently FFP still has 6120 “promotional sulu” in stock.

The sulu, according to the accounts (Note 11), have been “fully expensed”. This is because “realisable value cannot be determined with reasonable accuracy.” This is the way accountants say: “We don’t think anybody wants them so we can’t put any value to them.”

Perhaps to show their loyalty, FFP’s fans could buy the sulu to pay off the $1.6 million debt. This would cost only $270 per sulu. Just thought I’d try to help.

Richard Naidu is a Suva lawyer who writes a regular independent column for The Fiji Times. He has enough sulu. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Minister of Justice Kiri Allan is currently pushing through a programme of reform to the rules around political fundraising by politicians. And yet it turns out Allan herself has received large donations that raise questions about the integrity of the politician, the donor, and the Beehive systems that are meant to protect the democratic process.

On Friday 1News’ Benedict Collins revealed that in 2020 Kiri Allan received donations from Race Relations Conciliator Meng Foon to assist with her campaign to win the East Coast electorate. The donations were made up of $9185.04 in rent subsidies and $1500 in cash. Foon also donated the lesser amount of $1000 to unsuccessful National Party candidate Tania Tapsell.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is defending Foon’s donations, describing them as a “balanced approach” because he donated to both major parties. But a senior public servant giving money to politicians brings everyone into disrepute.

The Problem for public service neutrality and independence

The Human Rights Commission, for which Meng Foon works as the Race Relations Conciliator, is already under considerable scrutiny for being perceived as increasingly political and biased. This latest scandal will only erode public trust in the government entity. After all, the Commission is supposed to be independent of the Government, holding it to account as a watchdog. But when one of its most senior staff is found to be giving significant funding to politicians, this brings its independence into question.

The Public Service Commission has a “Conduct For Crown Entity Board Members” such as Foon, which clearly states they need to be politically impartial. This is the document that former Te Whatu Ora chair Rob Campbell fell foul of and led to his sacking. It states: “We act in a politically impartial manner. Irrespective of our political interests, we conduct ourselves in a way that enables us to act effectively under current and future governments… When acting in our private capacity, we avoid any political activity that could jeopardise our ability to perform our role or which could erode the public’s trust in the entity.”

It’s hard to see how Foon’s donations to politicians don’t violate this. Although Foon has responded to say that the donations were “minor”, in respect to Allan, they amounted to over $10,500 – a sum most ordinary citizens could not afford to give.

The fact that Foon also gave money – a much lesser amount – to a National Party candidate takes nothing away from the seriousness of the problem. If anything, when wealthy individuals give money to both sides, it raises public suspicions that they are trying to cover their bets, to gain influence with both possible winners. And the fact that such benefactors do not fund other parties shows that it’s not a case of being even-handed.

Foon has been asked if it’s appropriate for someone in his role to donate to politicians, to which he responded: “It didn’t cross my mind. It’s just a thing that we do automatically.” Such flippancy should raise questions about Foon’s judgement, especially since he is unable to see the problems of wealthy and senior public servants intervening in the electoral process.

The Prime Minister has also downplayed the seriousness of the rule break. When asked about senior public servants entering into the electoral process with large donations, Chris Hipkins merely said it’s “probably something I’d be a little bit uncomfortable about.”

It’s unclear how seriously the Human Rights Commission is taking the breach. It put out a public statement that “it takes the issue of neutrality extremely seriously.” But as yet it doesn’t appear to be taking any action over the matter or commenting further.

The Problem for Labour and Allan’s Integrity

Kiri Allan accepted the funding from Meng Foon when she was a backbench MP, and it was prior to her being appointed Minister of Justice. And she has pointed out that although it’s the Minister of Justice who appoints the Race Relations Conciliator, Meng’s appointment was made in 2019 by her predecessor, Andrew Little. Others have noted that the decision on whether to reappoint Foon for a second term in his role will fall to Allan’s office.

In terms of receiving the donation from Foon, who is not just a senior public servant but has also been a long-time major commercial property owner in her electorate of Gisborne, Allan has said she felt it was an appropriate relationship.

The problem is that Allan does not appear to have taken the perceived conflict of interest seriously. Firstly, on being appointed as Minister of Justice she failed to make a declaration, as required, to the Cabinet Office of the conflict of interest. On Friday, only after being caught out by 1News, she corrected this by informing the Cabinet Office of the situation.

The problem is that as Justice Minister she is pushing through some highly important reforms to the rules on political finance, and yet it appears that she has a faulty grasp of her own fundraising and integrity issues. Initially, when asked on Friday about being in receipt of donations from Foon, her response to media was: “I didn’t take any monetary donations from Meng Foon.”

The first problem with this response is that she appeared to be disingenuous in throwing in the caveat of “monetary” in her response, as she was obviously well aware of the in-kind donation of office space that was given to her campaign in 2020. But secondly, the statement was false, and she later had to admit that she had accepted a $1500 cash donation from Foon and his wife.

It turns out that Allan had forgotten that the Foons were her biggest individual donor. Explaining how she got this so wrong, Allan stated in the weekend, “As a politician, you don’t have a real solid recollection of every single person that donates to your campaign.”

Allan’s inability to deal with the details of her own donors is reminiscent of a statement she made last year about her decision on what financial level of donations should be declared by political parties. In drawing up new rules for when parties should have to declare donations to the public, the Ministry of Justice recommended that all donations to parties above $1500 should be made public. But Allan, rejected that and decided that the threshold should be set at the much higher amount of $5000, so that parties shouldn’t have to disclose so many donations. In justifying keeping so many donations secret, Allan said “the administrative burden was going to be a little too much.”

What should happen now?

How much confidence can the public have that ministers declare their conflicts of interest when they occur? The Foon-Allan donations case shows that the Beehive simply doesn’t have adequate procedures in place to make sure conflicts of interest are identified and managed.

Allan has stated that, on appointment as Minister of Justice, she had a long conversation with the Cabinet Office, which is tasked with managing such conflicts of interest. It appears that the Cabinet Office didn’t uncover or ask about the Foon donations, despite them being on the public record – they had been disclosed by Allan in her electoral returns to the Electoral Commission.

The Cabinet Office needs to review its processes. At the moment, there appears to be no particular rule for what level of donation to a minister constitutes a conflict of interest that needs to be declared.

Should Allan retain the donations given to her by Foon? Stuff journalist Andrea Vance wrote about the Allan situation yesterday, saying “MPs should not be taking money from state servants, and Allan should never have accepted the donation. It must immediately be repaid.”

And journalist Max Rashbrooke, who recently published a research report on political donations has also called for Allan to give the money back to Foon. And he says, “Foon should have it made clear to him that this can’t happen again.”

Others say Foon needs to resign over the matter, and that the integrity of the public service will be under question until he does so. On this, Vance says: “Foon’s position is now probably untenable. As a former politician he should have identified that his donations were inappropriate while he held a supposedly apolitical role, charged with holding the Government to account.”

Regardless, there is a need for the Human Rights Commission to explain how it allows its senior staff to make donations to politicians and for new procedures that make it very clear what the rules are.

This is also an urgent issue for the Public Service Commission, which needs to clarify to all senior public servants what they are allowed to do in terms of making donations to the politicians they serve.

Andrea Vance says the whole Foon-Allan is very damaging for the Labour Government, as it comes on top of other cases of integrity deficits in the administration: “This drip feed of mini-scandals have common threads. They paint a picture of a cosy elite bound by mutual back-scratching, most of which happens within the limits of the law, but that don’t quite pass the voters’ sniff test. Power eventually corrupts. And once that happens, it’s really hard to get the stink out.”

The stench of this latest episode isn’t something that will hang around for too long. Attention will move on, and there will be more scandals involving different politicians, from other parties too. But this latest episode shows how money in politics is still a major problem in New Zealand. Although the current Government claim to be cleaning up political donation laws, it’s a worry when the person in charge of that tidy-up has such a poor grasp of the issues.

Political Roundup: Is it time for an anti-corruption commission?

If ever there was an example of complacency about corruption and integrity in New Zealand politics it’s the fact that the Prime Minister’s Office knew back in 2021 that Cabinet Minister Stuart Nash was feeding privileged Cabinet information to business donors but did nothing about it.

This is one of the extraordinary details to come out of the Nash scandal. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins was forced to admit yesterday in Parliament that in 2021, when Jacinda Ardern was Prime Minister, her office was made aware of the incriminating 2020 email from Nash to his political donors but nothing was done about it because neither the Prime Minister nor the Chief of Staff were informed. If Ardern had been told, surely Nash would’ve been sacked then.

Cover up or stuff up in the PM’s Office?

Back in 2021, the PM’s Office was alerted to the Nash emails when a member of the public made an Official Information Act request relating to Stuart Nash’s emails. Ardern’s office became involved, deciding that Nash’s emails to donors Troy Bowker and Greg Loveridge didn’t have to be released as part of the request as the emails were deemed “out of scope” of what was requested.

Without knowing the details of what was requested, it’s hard to know whether this decision to keep the emails secret from the public was questionable or not. But it does seem extraordinary that in this process there was no thought to inform the Prime Minister about their existence.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon is calling this a “cover up”. That’s certainly a possibility – staff might have decided it was best to keep the Prime Minister in the dark about evidence of Nash’s dealings with his donor friends. More likely, it was due to complacency and poor integrity procedures in the Beehive.

If so, this isn’t necessarily cause for relief. It suggests the public can’t have confidence the Beehive is insisting on high ethical standards and prevention of possible corruption if staff were aware of this violation of ethics but were not aware of the need to take any action. It suggests that if other ministers were found to be passing on information to donors, this would also not be elevated to the Prime Minister.

Of course, this all occurred when the Beehive was under “previous management”. Hipkins says he has sent a message to his staff that he expects to be informed of such cases in the future.

Probe into corruption and integrity needs to be widened

Prime Minister Hipkins has bowed to pressure yesterday on the need for an inquiry in the communications between Nash and his financial donors. After first saying that he considered Nash’s political donations saga to be at an end, Hipkins has asked the Cabinet Office to undertake a thorough investigation, which will take about two months. This investigation should also deal with why the Prime Minister’s Office missed the problem in 2021.

The announcement of the inquiry is the right thing to do, although it’s limited because it only deals with Nash rather than all Government ministers and their relationship with donors. Given what’s happened with Stuart Nash it’s not clear that the public can have confidence that more generally ministers aren’t violating the rules. The Cabinet Office review should be widened, so that the public can have certainty it’s not a more widespread problem.

Another inquiry that Hipkins is resisting, but which also urgent, is into the role of lobbyists in the political process. The central and unregulated place of lobbyists in politics has been identified as a key democratic deficit in New Zealand’s governing system. Lobbying in New Zealand is entirely unregulated – a veritable “wild west” setting in which vested interests are able to convert their wealth into political influence, raising serious questions about integrity and corruption in New Zealand politics.

The integrity of the political process is in question at the moment, with revelations and scandals about political donations, lobbying, and vested interests. We are going to have to have some debates and discussion on how to clean up politics. While it’s good to have inquiries about individual scandals, it does seem like there’s an increasing case for the Government to establish an Anti-Corruption Commission much like they have in Australia.

This is something that The Opportunities Party called for on Wednesday. Leader Raf Manji went on RNZ’s Morning Report today to outline the democratic deficits in New Zealand’s political system, labelling it a “cosy club” which needs “an independent investigator like we have for the security intelligence services, like we have for the Police, who can investigate potential issues around corruption and unethical behaviour in our public institutions”.

Alternatively, perhaps the Serious Fraud Office could be given more powers to investigate some of these issues around lobbying and donations.

How the Nash scandal came to light

Veteran political journalist Richard Harman has discovered how the media came to get the emails on Tuesday which led to Nash being sacked. He published a story this morning that details the chain of events in which it appears that one of Nash’s political donors who received his email passed this on the former Minister’s political opponents.

Troy Bowker, who donated $10,000 to Nash in 2020, and who Nash leaked the sensitive Cabinet information to in 2021, seems to have fallen out with Minister in 2021. Bowker had a public scrap with another of Nash’s friends, Sir Ian Taylor, the founder of Animation Research.

This was over Taylor posting on the social media platform LinkedIn criticising National leader Judith Collins’ call for a national debate on making Aotearoa the official name of the country. This resulted in Bowker questioning Taylor’s Māori heritage and stating this was “Another example of European NZers not being proud of their own ancestors and sucking up to the left Māori loving agenda.”

Nash responded, according to Harman, by announcing he would no longer accept political donations from Bowker. Nash said Bowker’s comments were “appalling” and “it’s not the Troy I know”. Harman reports that “Nash has told friends that Bowker refused to back away and was furious with his comments and their friendship ended.”

Subsequently, broadcaster Sean Plunket has, according to Harman, said that the business donors then provided the incriminating email to various people connected with opposition political parties. One of these was to “a business journalist, who is now a media advisor to a major political party” – presumably the National Party. But, “Plunket said that Bowker had also provided the email to Act (who he has also donated to), and it was that party who leaked it to Stuff journalist Luke Malpass.”

It’s therefore good to see the media is doing its job in shining light on these integrity shortfalls. But the impression the public will get is that such incidents are only occasionally being unearthed – and usually only when there are bust ups between some of the central figures involved. Overall, the Nash scandal has illustrated that the New Zealand political system lacks robust integrity systems to guard against corruption. This urgently needs to change.

Political Roundup: Nash’s sacking means a deeper probe into Cabinet “insider trading” is required

Cabinet Minister Stuart Nash was sacked last night for violating Cabinet Collective Responsibility rules, when it was revealed he disclosed sensitive Government information to business supporters who had donated money to him. The breach of the Cabinet Manual was enough to land him in trouble, but the fact that it involved leaking information to his financial backers is what makes this a truly significant scandal.

A 2020 email from Nash to two of his financial backers was leaked to the media yesterday. It detailed Cabinet decision-making on an issue relating to Nash’s business donors’ property interests – rent relief for Covid-hit businesses. Nash’s email to Wellington businessmen Troy Bowker and Greg Loveridge revealed positions ministers had taken on the matter, and stated he disagreed with the decision they reached.

For many New Zealanders this will look corrupt and will reduce public confidence in the integrity of the political process. In this situation, Nash took $25,000 from two property developers in the 2017 and 2020 elections. The politician then provided those commercial property investors with privileged information about decisions and debates inside Cabinet on an issue pertaining to their interests.

Voters might also be forgiven for suspecting this is a common occurrence. After all, what else do business donors get from helping Cabinet Ministers and other politicians? In the New Zealand political system, it’s never been clear. We are often told by politicians and business donors that there are “no strings attached”. That has always stretched credibility.

An Independent inquiry into Cabinet-Donor relations is required

An independent investigation is now required about Nash’s dealings with his various business donors while he has been a minister of the Crown. There is now reason to question whether this sort of behaviour has occurred at other times in Nash’s political career. He certainly has a colourful and questionable history of political fundraising.

The question might also apply to others in government, as donations in New Zealand politics are incredibly murky. We simply don’t know what impact they have on the public policy process, except when the occasional whistle-blower allows the media and public some access to what is going on behind the scenes between wealthy individuals and decision-makers.

As Stuff political editor Luke Malpass says today, the donations aspect means “what had a bit of a whiff, became a stench.” He says the pressure on Hipkins to launch a probe into the matter will be significant, as there are too many unanswered questions about the donor-Cabinet relationship – such as: “Who else has he given sensitive information to? Has some of that inadvertently been used to make someone money somewhere?”

There will be a suspicion that Nash’s business donors were lobbying in their own financial interest, and that the politician was essentially involved in “insider trading”. The Leader of the Opposition has even labelled it as such, and called for Nash to resign from Parliament, stating that “integrity really matters”.

Luxon went on TV this morning to explain: “We haven’t actually seen something like this before in New Zealand … You’ve got a Cabinet minister, were confidential information is being discussed in Cabinet, who then is leaking and sharing that information with his donors. That is an incredibly serious and egregious issue… And how can he not be sure that other information hasn’t leaked with respect to [his] economic development or forestry or fisheries portfolios?”

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says that Nash’s sacking ends the issue for him. But political journalists are questioning this, and applying pressure for a proper inquiry. New Zealand Herald political editor Claire Trevett has disagreed with Hipkins’ suggestion that the issue is at an end, saying “it should be his job to make sure such a probe is done. Nobody should be getting inside information on decisions Cabinet has or is about to make – especially those with financial consequences. And the public also needs to be assured that ministers aren’t lobbying for their mates or donors around the Cabinet table.”

Likewise, Newsroom political editor Jo Moir writes today that “the sacking doesn’t erase those perceptions of influence, and it is unclear how many other instances of similar behaviour there may have been in the five years Nash had been a minister.” Moir therefore argues “It’s highly likely some sort of wider investigation will need to be conducted to ensure there haven’t been any other situations where confidential Cabinet information has been leaked and used for personal gain.”

Broadcaster Duncan Garner also thinks a thorough inquiry is now needed, because “We like to think corruption is not here but we are dreaming to say it’s not. What Nash did amounts to a form of corruption.”

Garner suggests that either the Auditor General or the Police might undertake the inquiry: “Every piece of work and all the appointments he made as a Minister must now be scrutinised by an independent inquiry, perhaps overseen by the Auditor-General so as to give the PM and public confidence there is nothing more to this. Only an independent inquiry can do this and if it has to go to the NZ police so be it.”

Donations to Nash point to a potential future with NZ First

The business donors who have backed Stuart Nash are also major contributors to the New Zealand First party. Wellington property investor Troy Bowker, who gave Nash $15,000 for his 2017 and 2020 election campaigns also donated to Winston Peters’ party. According to Richard Harman’s account today, “In 2019 he gave them $24,150; in 2020, $29500, to which his company, Caniwi Management, added another $29,500 and in 2021, $30,000.”

Nash also received donations of $5000 in 2017 and 2020 from businesses involving Greg Loveridge, who was the other recipient of Nash’s Cabinet information. And the businesses donating to Nash also gave NZ First $45,000 in 2020.

According to Harman, “That intersecting web of financial connections between Nash and NZ First and his known friendship with both Peters and Shane Jones raises questions about whether he might leave Labour for NZ First.”

Harman also reported Peters defending Nash last night, saying “The only mistake he made was to share his thoughts, and sometimes in a transparent democracy, we should be allowed to do that”. And so, Harman argues that with Nash’s time with the Labour Party now over, the politician’s “only possible lifeline would be NZ First.”

Clearly Nash has a close connection with New Zealand First, and they both increasingly appear to be ideologically in sync. And today, Claire Trevett says that Nash will have to decide whether “he can resurrect a political career with another party”.

Such a hop to another party would be a big deal, and it’s not clear that this is in Nash’s nature. An announcement of retirement seems more likely. Of course, Nash could leave Parliament soon, without causing a byelection, and because of New Zealand’s complete lack of regulation he could take his skills and connections and walk straight into a career lobbying the ministers he was sitting around a table with yesterday.

Further reading on Stuart Nash
Claire Trevett (Herald): Stuart Nash’s sacking was a no-brainer – but questions linger (paywalled)
Jo Moir (Newsroom): Perception problems hang over PM after inevitable Nash sacking
1News: Nash sacking makes PM look ‘strong’ – analyst
Richard Harman (Politik): The links between Stuart Nash and NZ First (paywalled)
Nick Truebridge (Newshub): Questions raised over donations received by Stuart Nash from timber, forestry industry
Luke Malpass (Stuff): The tragedy of Stuart Nash’s sacking and Labour’s troubled times ahead
Grady Connell (Today FM): Stuart Nash’s ex-colleague not shocked his loose lips have seen him sacked
Duncan Garner (Today FM): Self-serving Nash and his many ‘maaates’
Jacqui Van Der Kaay (Democracy Project): Broken trust led to sacking
Rachel Smalley (Today FM): Stuart Nash is gone – We’ve lost one of the good ones
David Farrar (Kiwiblog): Nash sacked
No Right Turn: Sacked for corruption
———-
Thomas Coughlan and Adam Pearse (Herald): Stuart Nash sacked from Cabinet, but won’t stand down as Napier MP
Anneke Smith (RNZ): ‘No by-election’: Stuart Nash says he plans to stay in Napier seat after sacking
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Stuart Nash says he won’t trigger a by-election in Napier
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Stuart Nash sacked as minister after email to donors emerged
Bridie Witton (Stuff): PM Chris Hipkins ‘gutted’ as he sacks Stuart Nash over Cabinet leaks
Anna Whyte (Stuff): Stuart Nash ‘needs to leave Parliament tonight’ – Christopher Luxon
Newshub: National leader Christopher Luxon calls for Stuart Nash to leave Parliament after sacking
RNZ: Fresh revelation of Cabinet rule breach leads to Stuart Nash’s sacking

Other items of interest and importance today

PARLIAMENT, ELECTION, LOBBYING
Henry Cooke: The case for an inquiry into lobbying
Kris Faafoi (Stuff): My shift from minister to lobbyist is nothing to apologise for
Pattrick Smellie (BusinessDesk): The case for an early election (paywalled)
Brigitte Morten (NBR): Labour’s policy vacuum opens door to Opposition opportunity (paywalled)
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): New Zealand is falling to pieces, we need a radical rethink of our neoliberal experiment Part 1
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): New Zealand is falling to pieces, we need a radical rethink of our neoliberal experiment Part 2
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): New police-style vests for Parliament Security after Parliament occupation
Manawatū Standard: Ankit Bansal selected as National’s candidate in Palmerston North
Tara Ward (Spinoff): Toni Collette was ‘totally inspired’ by Jacinda Ardern for new sci-fi series The Power

FOREIGN AFFAIRS, ASYLUM SEEKERS, SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE
Thomas Manch (Stuff): New Zealand interested in joining second tranche of Aukus deal, defence minister says
Sarah Robson (RNZ): The Detail: Balancing our alliances
RNZ: AUKUS is ‘going against’ Pacific nuclear free treaty – Cook Islands leader
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta raised China’s position on Ukraine war with diplomats in Beijing
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Trying to ‘look tough’ on asylum seekers, or actually help? Minister questioned over new bill
RNZ: Government announces plan to electronically tag asylum seekers who may pose risk
No Right Turn: Wood pulls a Dutton
RNZ: Government’s security arm works on addressing spread of disinformation

POSIE PARKER RALLY, DEBATE
Maria Slade (NBR): Learning to debate like grown-ups (paywalled)
Janet Wilson (Stuff): Critical thinking missing at the top in rugby and politics
Lincoln Tan (Herald): Human Rights Commission receives nearly 100 complaints on Marama Davidson and her ‘white cis men’ comment
Herald Editorial: Marama Davidson’s contrition warranted (paywalled)
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Are Marama Davidson and the Greens worth the trouble?
Stuff: Christopher Luxon wonders about a Marama Davidson apology for ‘white cis-men’ comment, PM Chris Hipkins says it’s done
Russell Palmer (RNZ): National Party leader Christopher Luxon demands Marama Davidson apologise to cis white men
Bridie Witton (Stuff): ‘This is about Marama’s lived experience’: Te Pāti Māori back Green co-leader after ‘white cis men’ comment
RNZ: Chris Hipkins says polarising debate in wake of Posie Parker visit not helpful
Sam Clements (Stuff): The bullying hypocrisy unleashed over Posie Parker
Paul Hunt (Herald): Posie Parker’s NZ visit: She’s entitled to share her views within limits (paywalled)
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): National’s Mark Mitchell wants review into why police ‘failed’ to stop Posie Parker juice attack

CLIMATE CHANGE, EXTREME WEATHER, INFRASTRUCTURE
Eloise Gibson (Stuff): Hidden heating: We assessed companies on their climate actions. It almost broke us
Brent Edwards (NBR): Climate Change Minister’s dissatisfaction with the Treasury (paywalled)
Rawiri Taonui (Stuff): How the rain falls differently upon Māori
Bernard Hickey: The climate landmine under our economy (a housing market with bits tacked on)
Rob Stock (Stuff): Managing the retreat: Is there political will for buying out flood victims, and how might it work?
Mahvash Ikram (RNZ): Stressed homeowners in West Auckland want government to step in over managed retreat
Rob Stock (Stuff): Insurance giant IAG has twice told woman it might cancel her flood cover
Rob Stock (Stuff): One in four Auckland mortgages are on homes in one-in-100-year flood zones
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): What has the cyclone cost and would a tax levy make any difference?
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): We’re on the road to… somewhere
Miriam Bell (Stuff): Housing rebuild should be a chance to do better, not a rush to patch up
Lucy Xia (RNZ): Elderly couple trapped in storm repair limbo: ‘I just can’t live like this’

LOCAL GOVERNMENT, THREE WATERS
Todd Niall (Stuff): Councillors concerned mayor Wayne Brown didn’t show at parliament for Three Waters select committee
ODT Editorial: Brown is New Zealand’s problem (paywalled)
Felix Watson (RNZ): Citizens Advice Bureau delivers petition to Auckland Council in effort to halt budget cuts
Oliver Lewis (BusinessDesk): Union warns against Ports of Auckland review (paywalled)
Georgina Campbell (Stuff): Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau looks to block the blocs
Brendon McMahon (Local Democracy Reporting): Coast chair goes in coup – Birchfield removed and deputy Haddock elected
Joanne Naish (Stuff): Allan Birchfield removed as West Coast Regional Council chairperson
Daisy Hudson (ODT): Nearly every councillor declined to meet Hannah Tamaki
Michael Fallow (Stuff): Michael Day – in praise of having plan D’s

BANKS
Bernard Hickey: RBNZ paying billions to banks in interest, plus lending $19b cheaply to banks
Sam Stubbs (Stuff): Here’s a way to give bank customers greater power and better deals

EMPLOYMENT, BUSINESS
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Pay transparency reform survives Chris Hipkins’ policy cull, but timing uncertain
Christine Rovoi (Stuff): Coalition group demands action on ethnic, gender and disability pay gaps
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Lobby group thanks Chris Hipkins for fixing gender pay gap – but he hasn’t
Anna Whyte (Stuff): Public service pay ‘freeze’ significantly loosened
RNZ: Pay freeze on high-earning public servants relaxed
Kim Moodie (RNZ): Survey of 540 businesses shows 90% struggling to find staff
Rob Stock (Stuff): Security guards to initiate Fair Pay Agreement negotiations
Alka Prasad (Herald): Hospitality shake up: Restaurant Association sets out wish list as it urges Government for better support

ENVIRONMENT
Anna Whyte (Stuff): What changes are coming to tackle New Zealand’s waste problem?
Anna Whyte (Stuff): NZ recycling, food waste to get an overhaul
Jamie Morton (Herald): NZ’s littering headache has got worse – national audit
Tatiana Gibbs (Stuff): Aotearoa’s green image is ‘fiction’: Audit finds amount of litter has more than doubled

HEALTH
Phil Pennington (RNZ): Just 3% of $500m ‘drawn down’ to improve or build mental health hospital facilities
ODT: A plan to cull 1000sq m of workspace from the new Dunedin hospital poses a “significant clinical risk” (paywalled)
ODT: Councillor unable to get questions on budget cuts answered (paywalled)
Ian Powell (BusinessDesk): How to fix the NZ laboratory fiasco (paywalled)
RNZ: New surgery service at Hutt Hospital tipped to improve patient wait times
Niva Chittock (RNZ): Christchurch Hospital slashes carbon emissions by more than 50%

COVID
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Greens call for universal Covid vaccine availabilty after nearly 2500 children under 5 hospitalised
Rowan Quinn (RNZ): Covid-19: 1.4 million doses of vaccine to be destroyed by the end of the week
Kate Newton (Stuff): The ‘Kraken’ sub-variant is now New Zealand’s dominant Covid strain — here’s why that’s not as scary as it sounds
RNZ: MBIE told to apologise to seafarers who struggled to get MIQ spot

TRANSPORT
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Zero speed camera warning signs set up since policy announced in 2019
Piers Fuller (Stuff): Ageing lower North Island rail needs multimillion-dollar cash boost fast-tracked
Oliver Lewis (BusinessDesk): The great divide: Auckland’s harbour tunnel (paywalled)

CO-GOVERNANCE
Damien Venuto (Herald): The Front Page: Could the anti-co-governance roadshow spark significant protest movement?
Te Aniwa Hurihanganui (1News): Anti co-governance tour organiser determined to press ahead
Finn Blackwell (RNZ): Protest against anti-cogovernance rally goes ahead in Auckland
RNZ: Auckland Council cancels co-governance meeting bookings citing safety reasons

EDUCATION
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Fears principals will quit or refuse to implement long programme of changes
Amy Wiggins (Rotorua Daily Post): Making the Grade: How teaching maths, reading needs ‘science of learning’ (paywalled)
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Drop in school-leavers receiving UE, high employment, sees big fall in domestic enrolments
Brent Edwards (NBR): A-G worried vocational education reforms are not further ahead (paywalled)
Rob Stock (Stuff): By the Numbers: Overdue overseas student debt passes milestone $2 billion mark

TREATY SETTLEMENTS, BREACHES
Craig Ashworth (RNZ): Taranaki Maunga agreement to be initialled on Friday
Kelvin McDonald (Whaaata Māori): Ngāti Kahungunu receive ‘long awaited’ Crown apology in Wairarapa

ABUSE IN CARE
Jimmy Ellingham (RNZ): Suggestions of delay in redress an insult, say survivors of abuse in state care
RNZ: Catholic Church abuse survivors group says Pope ignored their letter
Andrew McRae (RNZ): Complaints not upheld, redress process kept secret, says church-based abuse advocate

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Carrie Leonetti (Newsroom): A crisis we just can’t seem to fix
Krystal Gibbens (RNZ): Government must invest in rehabilitating family violence offenders, national network says

HOUSING
Rayssa Almeida (RNZ): Blockhouse Bay complex: Kāinga Ora plans social housing on land donated for senior citizens’ homes
Tess Brunton (RNZ): Homeless in paradise: Queenstown residents living in cars, tents
RNZ: Queenstown council looks to govt for answers as pressure grows for housing action
Geraden Cann (Stuff): What happens when housing’s ‘wealth effect’ dries up?

PRIMARY AND EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES
Guy Trafford (Interest): Food or trees? the land use debate
Jonathan Mitchell (NBR): Offshore petroleum permit approved after court-ordered review (paywalled)

OTHER
Sela Jane Hopgood (Spinoff): The four must-haves to reduce Pacific child poverty in Aotearoa
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Date set for IRD to stop pocketing child payments destined for parents on benefits
Anan Zaki (RNZ): New Zealand’s critical infrastructure vulnerable to hackers – Cyber security expert
Rob Stock (Stuff): Complaints made to Privacy Commission as Latitude admits 1.037 million New Zealand driver’s licence details stolen
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Chris Hipkins ‘threw police under the bus’ over fog cannon scheme, National says
Robin Kearns (Newsroom): We must embrace Māori renaming

Political Roundup: Public submissions on political donation reform released

Is it ironic that the Government is reforming rules around secret political donations in a very secretive way? There has been overwhelming public demand for more openness about how politicians raise their money, but the Government and officials have been less than transparent and very restrictive over the whole submission process.

The public had a very limited opportunity to give feedback on the Government’s first proposals for political donation reform. The Ministry of Justice called for submissions over the Christmas New Year period, allowing an extremely short timeframe, with submissions closing on January 25. Critics might be forgiven for being cynical about how much public input the Government really wanted.

Further alarm bells have been ringing for those concerned about open government, due to the fact that the Ministry of Justice has been attempting to prevent the public submissions from being released to the public. The Ministry wanted to keep these for Cabinet ministers eyes only.

Battles to obtain public information

As an academic researcher of political finance I have been battling with the Ministry over many months to be provided with copies of the submissions. I first requested the files in early April, but have had various fobbing off communications from the Ministry and attempts to decline my Official Information Act request. One request was ignored because I had failed to cite the “Official Information Act” in my communications (but, no this isn’t a good enough reason).

After attempts to decline my request, and a complaint to the Ombudsman, I finally received the information this month.

Unfortunately some key submissions have been withheld, specifically submissions from three political parties. The Ministry of Justice’s general manager of civil and constitutional policy, Kathy Brightwell, informed me that “The political parties which the ministry received submissions from, provided these on a confidential basis. These parties may not have provided submissions if they knew they were going to be identified, so it would be within the public interest to withhold their submissions, as release of this would likely prejudice the supply of similar information”.

Journalist Andrea Vance has also been declined the public submissions, and yesterday she reported that “The Ministry of Justice struck a deal with political parties to keep secret their submissions on donation law reform.” She also reports the reaction of National’s Justice spokesperson Paul Goldsmith, who said it was “deeply shocking and ironic” that transparency reforms were being blighted by officials keeping submissions secret.

It is unclear which three political parties have asked the Ministry of Justice to keep their submissions secret. National has already publicly released their submission. And according to Andrea Vance, the Greens and Act are happy to publicly release their submissions. She also says that Labour didn’t provide a formal written submission – instead the party’s general secretary gave an oral representation to the Ministry, and it appears the records of that meeting are being withheld.

Until political parties’ consultations and submissions are released, it will continue to raise questions about the Government’s commitment to improve political transparency.

What the public submissions say

The Ministry of Justice received 276 submissions from the public about the Government’s proposed changes to political donation rules. It’s very clear that most submitters felt reform is urgently needed and the proposed reforms do not go far enough.

Below are some of the key themes of the submissions:

1) Almost unanimous support for lowering the threshold for disclosure. Currently, only donations over $15,000 have to be publicly declared. While there is strong support for the proposal to lower this to $1500, many advocate for an even lower threshold, with a significant number arguing for the limit to be $100 or $200.

2) The majority of submissions support an absolute cap on how much an individual can donate to a political party each year. Many suggest that the $1500 disclosure limit proposed by the Government should actually be the cap. Greenpeace recommended a $10,000 per year cap (The Green Party has introduced legislation to cap donations at $30,000).

3) Many submitters explicitly mentioned concern over corporate donations. A significant number advocated that only individuals should be able to donate – i.e. businesses, trusts, unions shouldn’t be allowed to donate to political parties.

4) There was strong support for increasing frequency of reporting. The submissions agree that the current annual reporting of donations is insufficient, with quarterly or monthly reports recommended, especially during election years and campaign periods.

5) Opposition to the Government’s proposal to remove the ten day disclosure requirement for donations greater than $30,000 was almost unanimous, with most viewing that such a significant sum should be required to be immediately disclosed, even if frequency for smaller donations is increased.

6) There was very strong support for more detailed public disclosures of non-cash donations. A number mentioned the use of fundraising auctions, particularly by the Labour Party, as needing much tighter scrutiny and regulation.

7) Most submissions called for the public disclosure of many more donations, even those under $1500 (which the Government is proposing should be exempt from disclosure). There is strong support for the publishing of the volume and total of donations that political parties receive, regardless of the threshold level.

8) There is very clear support for increased transparency and audits of party finances.

9) Submitters support requiring political candidates to disclose loans, with some calling for a complete ban on loans, a practice at the centre of the current trial related to the NZ First Foundation.

10) In terms of anonymous donations, most submitters thought that there should be either a complete ban or they should be much more restricted – typically a $100-$200 limit per year.  There was some concern about the administrative burden of collecting information for very small donations, but a number made the point that modern technology and finance tools have made tracking payments and donors much easier, and that many countries successfully operate much more detailed and frequent disclosure regimes.

There was some very limited opposition for a complete ban on anonymous donations, notably from the Law Society who argued that some anonymity for donations under $1500 is justified. However, the Chartered Accountants association supported a ban, noting how problematic anonymous funding can be, saying that “while political parties are not subject to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009, there is a reasonable public expectation that political parties have an important role in deterring potential money laundering activities.”

11) A significant number of submissions recognised that greater restrictions and regulation of political donations would lead to a severe reduction in income for political parties, and that this might therefore increase the need for greater state funding of parties.

In general, the submissions are a mixed bag, with varying quality of analysis. That is the nature of public submissions. It can’t be assumed that the submitters are in any way an accurate representation of the public. Nonetheless, it was apparent that there were very few “cut and paste” submissions, which often occurs when some organisations ask their supporters to make submissions repeating a party line. Given that, the near unanimity of views that the proposals needed to go further was striking.

On the other hand, unfortunately, there were also very few submissions from civil society organisations – Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand, the National Māori Authority, Greenpeace, Transparency International New Zealand, the Gama Foundation and the New Zealand Values Alliance. This suggests a need for the Government to find ways to expand their public consultation on this crucial area of democracy.

If you want to see the file of public submissions, this is now available on my Democracy Project website – see: Ministry of Justice OIA release of information on political donations.

Further reading on political donations

Andrea Vance (Stuff): Political party views on donations shake-up kept secret in deal with Ministry of Justice
No Right Turn: A conspiracy against the public
Sam Hurley (Herald): NZ First Foundation case: High Court permanently suppresses identities of accused pair
RNZ: NZ First Foundation case: Donation handlers win permanent name suppression

Other items of interest and importance today

COST OF LIVING AND INFLATION
Daniel Smith (Stuff): Over 40% of workers struggling to meet basic needs, research shows
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Inflation helps firms posting super profits in 2022, but MPs cool on windfall tax
Eric Crampton (Newsroom): Extra half billion dollars in fuel cuts could have gone to critical health shortages
Liam Dann (Herald): Is a housing crash the secret weapon in war on inflation? (paywalled)
Susan St John (Daily Blog): Here is what must happen in child poverty before the end of this year
Steven Cowan: The Winter of discontent
Brent Edwards (NBR): Inflation will have an impact on next year’s election (paywalled)
John McDermott (NBR): The uneven effect when prices rise (paywalled)
David Hargreaves (Interest): It’s crunch time in the inflation battle
Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): Will higher-than-expected inflation send mortgage rates further north? (paywalled)
Tim Dower (Newstalk): Having our youth living in poverty makes no sense at all
Daniel Smith (Stuff): Three industries hit hardest by inflation
Rodney Dickens (Interest): Calls for more OCR hikes are seriously misplaced
Damien Venuto (Herald): How much longer will the inflation pain last?
Kurt Bayer (Herald): Construction site raids: Builders resort to sleeping on-site to deter brazen thieves (paywalled)
Pattrick Smellie (BusinessDesk): Why I’m tired of the RBNZ blame game (paywalled)
Clint Smith (Stuff): Who should bear the cost of tackling inflation?
Brianna Mcilraith (Stuff): Petrol prices drop across NZ as Government questions fuel companies
RNZ: Weekly food spend up by 5 percent on last year, survey finds
Seni Iasona (Newshub): Employee Sentiment Index finds 41 percent of Kiwi workers are struggling to meet basic living costs

THREE WATERS AND CO-GOVERNANCE
Richard Harman: Why the Government needs Three Waters (paywalled)
Chris Trotter (BFD): We are all Māori – with a small ‘M’
Chris Trotter (Daily Blog): The Danish solution: How repudiating co-governance could be the saving of Labour
Tim Dower (Newstalk): Our water needs attention, but Three Waters is not the way to do it
Richard Prebble (Herald): Three Waters is an attack on democracy (paywalled)
Irra Lee (1News): Three Waters debates need to be based on fact – Ardern
Claire Trevett (Herald): Three Waters: Government to give councils $44m to help set up Three Waters reforms
Bill Cashmore (Herald): Auckland Council’s position on the Three Waters reform has been consistent since announced (paywalled)
Stephen Ward (Stuff): Hamilton councillors unite to say ‘no’ to Three Waters bill – but political ripples remain
RNZ: Lower South Island mayors stake jobs on three waters approach
Imogen Wells (Newshub): Three Waters dominates at Local Government NZ conference, but Jacinda Ardern dogged by mask controversy
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Wellington fluoride failure a scandal in a league of its own (paywalled)

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND ELECTIONS
David Farrar: LGNZ bans dissenting voices from its annual conference
Janine Rankin and Conor Knell (Stuff): ‘It’s tough time to be a public official’ – Prime Minister at LGNZ conference
Giles Dexter (RNZ): ‘The toughest term’: Mayors grapple with pace and scale of reforms
Roman Travers (Newstalk): How do we encourage people to vote in local body elections?
Te Aniwa Hurihanganui (1News): All newly elected Māori councillors to get mentor
Ashleigh McCaull (RNZ): Māori councillors say they face racism in role: ‘Well your people should be alright, they’ve raised the benefit’
RNZ: Councillors experiencing racism, discrimination on the job – survey
Mike Hosking (Herald): Christchurch the Super City – think big, dream big and build it big (paywalled)
Anna Fifield (Stuff): LGWM requires carrots and sticks
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Wanted for the All Blacks, but not as NZ citizen – why Inoke Afeaki is running for election
David Williams (Newsroom): Mayoral candidate: I should have disclosed conflict
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Wellington’s mayor playing high-stakes election game (paywalled)
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Wellington ‘out of step’ with only one special voting booth
Matthew Scott (Newsroom): Candidates clash as Auckland mayoral race heats up

NATIONAL PARTY
Rebecca Stevenson (Interest): Christopher Luxon is right. NZ business is soft
Ben Thomas (Stuff): Plumbing the depths: the decline and fall of an Opposition
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Poll: National support with women increases, overtaking Labour, despite abortion controversy
Andrea Vance (The Spinoff): ‘They clashed like f*ckery’: The final straw for Todd Muller
Andrea Vance (Stuff): The inside story of Todd Muller’s tipping point, as told in the book Blue Blood
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): Nicola Willis says changing abortion laws would be ‘dealbreaker’, trusts Christopher Luxon’s assurances National won’t
RNZ: National Party conference to go ahead in person despite rising Covid cases

PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT AND ELECTIONS
Tova O’Brien (Today FM): It seems the Government is as all over the shop as the rest of us
Peter Dunne: Time for MPs to think for themselves
1News: Shaw: Leadership questions not behind moving Greens AGM online
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Right or Left? Two scenarios for political violence in NZ 2023 election
Sam Olley (RNZ): Environmentalists, mana whenua criticise PM’s ‘appalling’ gift to US president
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (Herald): NZ’s future leaders ready to be heard right now
Olivia Shivas (Stuff): $1m Election Access Fund gets mixed response from disabled people
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Youth MPs call on Parliament to lower the voting age
Herald: Online survey to see if you want to be on the Māori Electoral Roll or the General Roll
Deena Coster (Stuff): Democracy NZ not just a ‘one-issue party’ – leader

IMMIGRATION CHANGES
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): Greens say new investor visa slap in face for nurses, lets super wealthy buy residency while they jump through hoops
Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): Foreign investors will need to work harder to get NZ residency
Matthew Scott (Newsroom): Partner work visas on the chopping block
Amelia Wade (Newshub): Concern Government’s investor visa change could lead New Zealand to losing billions

HEALTH
Ian Powell: What happens when a health minister loses workforce trust and confidence
Damien Venuto (Herald): What could alleviate massive strain on the health sector?
Janine Rankin (Stuff): Covid-19 exposes deep trouble in primary healthcare
Zarina Hewlett (Today FM): NZNO not “impressed” Andrew Little dismissed their credibility

HOUSING
Andrea Vance (Stuff): ‘Get rich quick scheme’ – $16m paid to an Auckland motel for emergency accommodation
RNZ: New home building costs rising at record 7.7% annual rate
1News: KiwiBuild a ‘totally failed policy’ – Nicola Willis
Katie Bradford (1News): Govt relaxes restrictions around troubled KiwiBuild policy
Herald: Kiwibuild: Income and price caps adjusted for Government housing scheme
Louise Ternouth (RNZ): Renters stuck in cold, damp homes as compliance with law lacking – advocates

COVID
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Jacinda Ardern snapped maskless may ‘indicate that’s okay behaviour’, photo-ops should model good mask-use, experts say
Amelia Wade (Newshub): Michael Baker ‘quite shocked’ at photo of Jacinda Ardern maskless in crowd
Claire Trevett (Herald): The PM and the maskless photo – fair or foul, and have we got too precious? (paywalled)
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): National Deputy leader Nicola Willis defends PM Jacinda Ardern after maskless photo causes furore
1News: ‘Give her a break’: Willis defends PM’s maskless group photo
Zizi Sparks (Herald): Covid-19 mask wearing shouldn’t fall by the wayside (paywalled)
Lloyd Burr (Today FM): Can we ease up on the mask shaming, please?
Herald: Editorial: Sick days hit the workforce as second wave rises (paywalled)
Hannah Martin (Stuff): What we know about the ‘Centaurus’ BA.2.75 variant in New Zealand

EDUCATION
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Think-tank reveals high failure rate in small trial-run of new literacy, numeracy tests
Gabrielle McCulloch (Stuff): Number of students missing from school has almost doubled in past nine months
Sarah Robson (RNZ): The boom and bust of our polytechs

Political Roundup: Major shakeup of electoral rules could be coming

Get ready for a big debate on how to improve democracy in New Zealand. On Tuesday, Justice Minister Kris Faafoi announced the review panel that will oversee a once-in-a-generation overhaul of electoral rules, including how political parties are funded. The announcement contained details of some significant changes to elections and Parliament to be considered.

The review is welcome news, as there is significant room for improvement in how New Zealand politics works. And the Minister’s reform process looks fairly sensible.

As well as dealing with the crucial issue of money in politics, the new review will consider other highly contentious electoral issues: lowering the voting age, reducing the 5% MMP threshold, abolishing the coat-tailing rule, lengthening the parliamentary term, and increasing the ability to move on and off the Māori electoral roll.

It’s easy to be sceptical about the possibility of real reform – there have been numerous reviews of elections and rules over the years that haven’t resulted in any change. But it looks like Faafoi has listened to criticisms and come up with something more robust.

There are now essentially two stages to Faafoi’s review – step one is currently looking at some targeted changes to electoral finance rules, and these are due to be put in the place this year, in time for next year’s election. This first step may end up just being tinkering. It’s the second step that will be much more sweeping in focus, allowing for the possibility of major reform.

The independent review panel of six has also been announced. The chair is lawyer Deborah Hart, and it includes Māori academic Maria Bargh, electoral law expert Andrew Geddis, law student and disability advocate Alice Mander, former Chief Electoral Officer Robert Peden, and political scientist Lara Greaves.

Faafoi says the panel was picked in consultation with the leaders of other parties in Parliament. Even so, there has been some grumbling about the group not being very politically diverse. National-aligned blogger Liam Hehir argued yesterday that although they “all seem like pretty talented and credentialed people… it seems to be a fairly left-wing group” that “falls pretty squarely within the comfort zone of the Labour Party.” He believes that, although each panel member obviously has their own integrity, it will be hard for some individuals not to be influenced by the Government’s agenda.

Such criticisms will likely only help push panel members to further assert their independence and make sure they properly engage with all sorts of stakeholders in coming up with their recommendations.

It’s this issue of public engagement that the Government has, so far, been very weak on in terms of their electoral reform agenda. For example, for the first stage of reforms Faafoi released a set of proposals for change, and only gave the public a few weeks over the summer break to provide feedback, suggesting they were not actually very interested in consultation.

The Greens have been the biggest critics of the Government’s reform programme, with justice spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman hitting out yesterday, saying there had already been enough reviews and it was time for the Government to just implement previous recommendations.

She suggested the Government was stalling on reform, and advocated Labour simply support her private members bill which sought to implement a large number of changes, including the 2012 recommendations of the Electoral Commission. Ghahraman said: “Those matters should now be acted upon, and this new working group should look at other things… we wouldn’t want it to be used as a delay tactic.”

However, many of the reforms that Ghahraman’s private members bill champions are highly contentious, and all require much more debate and discussion. The Government’s review seems the most sensible way forward for these, rather than just pushing major constitutional changes through the debating chamber as the Greens suggest.

What’s more, although the Government’s review panel will certainly take time – it could be that any new reforms are only passed in time for the 2029 election – there is no doubt the panel will be moving quite fast, and potentially too fast. Major constitutional reform should be done slowly with maximum public debate. According to the detail of the new reforms, the panel’s timeframes are fairly urgent: they will release a potential range of reform options by November this year, their draft recommendations will be put to the public by May next year, and their final report will come out in November next year.

Some might see the reform area as too narrow. And there certainly are areas that the review isn’t allowed to look at – such as the size of the Parliament – which clearly should be on the agenda. But all the other issues under the microscope provide for the possibility of quite radical change.

There will be an obvious temptation for the media and public to focus on the contentious issue of lowering the voting age, but the other areas are also truly huge.

For example, the review will look at the rules around political party advertising, with some big changes expected, including a shakeup of the allocation of broadcasting monies to the parties, a repeal of the ban on election day advertising, and new rules for social media use by politicians. Likewise, big changes could occur in protecting the country from foreign influence, and for how the state deals with politicians who may have broken the political finance rules.

But along with issues like fixing money in politics, the review will grapple with the major issue of whether our system of MMP should continue with the current five per cent threshold, which keeps minor parties from growing and getting into Parliament. The review panel are likely to advocate that it is reduced to something like three per cent, or perhaps even abolish it entirely – something that would make the system more democratic. Such a change would be truly consequential, and it’s a very good example of why the public needs to take this new review very seriously, and engage with it. Let the debate on how to improve democracy begin.

Other items of interest and importance today

1) Thomas Manch (Stuff): Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand can handle Pacific security, as China seeks region-wide agreement
2) Jamie Ensor (Newshub): New Zealand must be more involved in Pacific, Opposition says, amid new China revelations
3) Michael Neilson (Herald): Solomon Islands-China security pact: NZ Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta meets counterpart
4) William Hewett (Newshub): Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand ready to respond to any security challenges in Pacific as China seeks to expand presence in region
5) Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Gerry Brownlee says he called ambassadors while Foreign Minister, unlike Nanaia Mahuta
6) Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk): Can we all accept now that Nanaia Mahuta is not great at her job?
7) Mike Hosking (Newstalk): The rise of the lazy politician is detestable
8) Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): High-profile Chinese visit steps up battle for the hearts and debts of the Pacific
9) Michael Hall (RNZ): NZ entering Ukraine conflict ‘at whim of govt’ – former Labour politicians
10) Josh Wineera (Stuff): Artillery training for Ukraine is NZ’s big-stick option
11) Lloyd Burr (Today FM): ‘Our electoral system is good – it’s time to make it even better’
12) Liam Hehir (Patreon): The government is up to its old tricks on the voting age
13) Tony Alexander (One Roof): Interest rates set to rise hard and fast
14) Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): Reserve Bank raises OCR to 2 per cent as it seeks to smack down inflation (paywalled)
15) Richard Harman: Re-election just got harder for Ardern (paywalled)
16) Diana Clement (One Roof): ‘All guns blazing’: Could interest rates hit 7%?
17) Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Is the health budget really failing Māori? (paywalled)
18) Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Christopher Luxon slams ‘wasteful’, as first-home buyer borrowing conditions reach worst peak in 14 years
19) Richard Prebble (Herald): Why Aussie election is bad news for Jacinda Ardern (paywalled)
20) Shane Te Pou (Herald): Lessons to be learnt from Aussie election result (paywalled)
21) Phil Pennington (RNZ): Oranga Tamariki badly mismanaged $60m sexual abuse programme, review finds
22) Matthew Scott (Newsroom): Lower-decile students work harder, study finds
23) Philip Stevens (Herald): Education ladder out of poverty has rungs too far apart (paywalled)
24) John Gerritsen (RNZ): Report shows doubts about national polytechnic, Te Pūkenga
25) Jamie Morton (Herald): Can we inoculate our kids against disinformation? (paywalled)
26) Luke Malpass (Stuff): Ardern on brand and pushing the brand – both personal and political – in New York
27) Jo Moir (Newsroom): PM’s pivot to gun law reform in wake of Texas shooting
28) Herald: Jacinda Ardern on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: PM on gun control, Neve’s briefcase
29) Benn Bathgate (Stuff): New bilingual ‘Kura School’ sign unveiled in move aimed at sharing ‘taonga of te reo in our signage’
30) Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Human Rights Commission launches school uniform guidelines aimed at making policy more ‘inclusive’

Should anyone have trust in politicians, given the manner in which they solicit money from the wealthy? Probably not, since virtually every party in Parliament in recent times has been found to be involved in flaunting the law or accepting dodgy donations from the rich. News reports of questionable donations and fundraising have been building up over recent years, and this year it only seems to be escalating.

This week it’s the Labour Government in the spotlight – with revelations that they are continuing to use the fundraising mechanism of the last National Government, whereby the Prime Minister and other senior ministers are advertised to wealthy businesspeople as available for an audience in exchange for cash. This “cash for access” scheme was named the “Cabinet Club” by National, but the Labour Government gives it the name “Labour Party Business Conference” – see Derek Cheng’s Labour’s $1795 ‘business’ conference – How much should it cost to chat to Jacinda Ardern and senior ministers?.

This all-day fundraising meeting for businesspeople will take place on 30 July in Auckland. The invitation sent out by Labour Party president Claire Szabo promises “interactive sessions” with the top ministers and PM to discuss policies, finishing with “networking drinks” – all for the price of $2064 (including GST).

Labour’s coalition partner the Greens have criticised the fundraising, with Justice spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman alleging that these donations are about privileged access to decisionmakers, pointing out that only the wealthy can gain the ear of the Government ministers. She wants the rules on this kind of fundraising changed: “We keep having these things be revealed to the public, and find that the public is shocked and horrified that these things can happen within the rules”. Furthermore, she complains, “It’s all within the rules, so it’s really time to change the rules, even though politicians have a vested interest in the rules remaining.”

Labour Party general secretary Rob Salmond is reported justifying the cash for access scheme on the basis that other parties do it: “For many years political parties have hosted events which their MPs attend, and sold tickets to those events. There’s nothing new in that.” However, previously Salmond has been highly critical of National doing the same thing. For example, in 2014 when his opponents denied that Cabinet Clubs were a conflict of interest or a problem, lampooned their denials: “Cabinet Clubs are not clubs, just as high-class prostitutes are not prostitutes, and conflicts of interest are not interests.”

This latest dodgy donations scandal was first reported yesterday by Richard Harman, who explains “Labour has obviously carefully designed this so that it falls within Electoral law and also the requirements of the Cabinet Manual” – see: $1795 to meet a Labour Cabinet Minister (paywalled). He points out that in terms of selling access to the decisionmakers, “The invitation did not refer to their Ministerial titles but instead described them as ‘spokesperson’ for their relevant portfolios.”

A history of selling access to Cabinet ministers

The Labour Party is quite right to say that their business club fundraising is nothing new. The National Government was infamous for setting up its Cabinet Club under John Key’s prime ministership, in which people could pay $1000-plus to chat to senior ministers. I covered this in 2014, in a column, Is there ‘cash for access’ in NZ politics?.

In this I drew attention to Labour’s use of the term “corruption” in relation to National’s fundraising. MP Louisa Wall wrote a piece condemning the practice, saying “This is clearly payment for access and if the price is right a deal can be done” – see: When does corruption start damaging National?.

Once Labour got into power, however, it was quick to emulate National’s techniques. In 2017 Labour launched its exclusive “President’s Club”, which gave wealthy businesspeople a chance to purchase dinner opportunities with Cabinet ministers.

Then in 2018 the Minister of Finance started inviting businesspeople, corporate lobbyists and other wealthy individuals to meet with him in exclusive venues for dinner, where he would speak, signal future policy announcements, and go from table to table for more intimate discussions with donors – see my roundup at the time: Questions over Grant Robertson’s ‘cash for access’ fundraising.

Other recent revelations about donations

According to Richard Harman, writing about Labour’s latest corporate fundraising, the political parties are trying to find new sources of cash, especially after the Serious Fraud Office clamped down on some of their donors: “Both Labour and National are under pressure now to find new sources of funding with their previously lucrative China funding pipelines effectively closed down by the Serious Fraud Office, which has charges before the courts relating to both parties’ acceptance of funding from Chinese sources.”

Newsroom writer Pete McKenzie has uncovered some other interesting donations involving various parties. Perhaps the most interesting is the donation accepted by the Green Party from someone prosecuted for abuse of animals. McKenzie explains that one of the party’s biggest donors was convicted in 2020 for her severe neglect of animals, but despite her donation being processed by the Greens’ ethics committee the money was accepted, and the party still refuse to return the money – see: Greens won’t be returning $54k donations from animal abuser.

The Greens claim they were unaware of the abuse, but McKenzie says a quick search online uncovered “her history of neglect”. And the party argue that the law means the money can’t be donated to another organisation such as the SPCA.

Blogger No Right Turn is aghast at the party’s stance on this, asking: How much is the Greens’ reputation worth?. He argues the case of animal neglect “was fairly high-profile”, and he says “I’m surprised that no-one in the party noticed.”

The blogger argues the party has the ability to return the donation but is choosing not to, which means the Greens are complicit: “if they refuse to do so, knowing the crimes the donor committed, their supporters are perfectly entitled to conclude that they support those crimes, or are at least willing to turn a blind eye to them for money. And I doubt many of them would find that acceptable.”

McKenzie has uncovered another dodgy donation accepted by a Labour MP, who has now returned the money – see: Minister returns donation from Christchurch attack conspiracy theorist. Here are the basic details: “Phil Twyford has returned a $2,000 donation after Newsroom found that it came from a man who claimed the Christchurch terror attacks were part of a Jewish conspiracy.”

Another Cabinet Minister, Stuart Nash, has received large donations from businesspeople in industries that he oversees. According to McKenzie, “Nash raked in nearly $50,000 in big money donations for last year’s election – including at least $25,500 from people who could benefit from decisions he makes as the new minister in charge of forestry and regional development” – see: Donations create conflict issue for Stuart Nash’s forestry portfolio.

This article quotes researcher Max Rashbrooke arguing that it is “concerning if a minister is accepting or has accepted donations from an industry which he is supposed to be regulating”, and he is “calling on Nash to return the money”. In response, a spokesperson for Nash says the Cabinet Office has cleared Nash’s situation, but McKenzie says the “spokesperson did not respond to questions regarding which interests and potential conflicts the minister disclosed”, and nor did they “respond to questions regarding whether he would recuse himself from any ministerial decisions specifically involving individuals and companies who have donated to his campaigns.”

McKenzie has written another piece for Newsroom in which he focuses on the National Party’s recent fundraising technique whereby the head office appears to collect money on behalf of local election candidates, and then donates the money to an individual’s campaign – see: Politics rife with ‘dark money’. The speculation is that this is a technique to get around the laws requiring donors to be publicly disclosed as donating to that candidate.

National has responded and is quoted in the article, saying: “Whilst it is easy to hypothesise, allege, and pontificate on the nefarious intent of some in politics, and use that falsehood as an angle to smear other political parties, in the case of the National Party it is frankly just inaccurate and wrong.”

The article also examines the Labour Party’s use of artwork auctions, in which prominent artists donate artwork which is sold to Labour supporters, effectively as an undeclared donation.

McKenzie has also summarised his own conclusions about his series of Newsroom articles, writing for the Guardian, concluding that New Zealand’s campaign finance laws are broken. That can have enormous consequences. He argues, “An increased appetite for political donations strengthens the political influence of the wealthiest New Zealanders”.

The SFO investigations

Last month the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced it was prosecuting six individuals in relation to donations to the Labour Party. This comes on top of an upcoming trial relating to National Party donations. New Zealand First is also being investigated by the SFO, and Te Paati Māori has been referred for investigation by the Police.

When the Labour prosecution case was announced, Jacinda Ardern responded to say: “This isn’t a good environment for anyone, for no political party, but nor for New Zealanders, they want to have confidence in the system so let’s look at the law.”

That’s “a cop-out” according to RNZ political editor Jane Patterson, who says the “latest charges to be laid by the Serious Fraud Office are a reflection on the players, not the system” – see: SFO charges an indictment on political parties – not the system. She complains that “It’s a default position of political parties to call for a review of the rules when trouble arises.”

Patterson rails against politicians who suggest the problem is with the rules and perhaps with the ability of the politicians and donors to easily abide by these. She suggests the pattern of rule violation makes it clear that those who do so have “a good understanding and knowledge of the rules, rather than offences being committed in ignorance.”

Patterson concludes: “All of this erodes public trust. To have cases linked to National, Labour and New Zealand First, either before the courts or heading for them, is an indictment on the politicians and those parties, not the system.”

Similarly, the Herald’s Audrey Young has described Ardern’s response to the Labour-related SFO charges as being “knee-jerk”, and points out that “Ardern resisted calling for a look at the law when charges were laid in relation to National and New Zealand First donations. That suggestion arose only after charges were laid in relation to Labour” – see: Jacinda Ardern’s knee-jerk reaction to SFO charges (paywalled).

Young says Ardern’s attempt to blame “the system” is misplaced when in fact the “law is clear” and is finally working – in bringing charges against those who are allegedly violating the rules. She celebrates that after years of complaints about dodgy donation going nowhere, finally “the system” is prosecuting, and therefore New Zealanders can “have confidence that the system might actually be working”. She therefore advises against the politicians immediately undertaking yet another overhaul of donations law: “The law has been refined many times. Now it is time for it to be tested before the courts.”

Finally, for details on how well the parties did out of donations in 2020, see the report on the official figures disclosed last month – see Michael Neilson, Claire Trevett and Jason Walls’ National received nearly $3m in political donations in 2020 – nearly double Labour.

How seriously does the Māori Party take issues of corruption and the untoward influence of big money in politics? Not very, based on how it’s handling a political finance scandal in which three large donations were kept hidden from the public.

The party is currently making excuses, and largely failing to answer questions, about being referred to the Police for breaches of the Electoral Act for not declaring large donations it received during the election campaign, amounting to what could be corrupt practice.

The news of the Māori Party being referred to the Police is in Claire Trevett’s news report yesterday, Election donations: Māori Party referred to police over $320,000 in undeclared donations.

As the article notes, “Under electoral laws, political parties must disclose donations of more than $30,000 within 10 working days.” This is so the public, especially during an election campaign, is aware of who is funding the politicians. In this case, the Māori Party decided not to declare, as the law requires, three very large donations, which amount to nearly a third of a million dollars.

The money donated comes from former party co-leader John Tamihere ($158,224), Aotearoa Te Kahu Limited Partnership ($120,000), and the National Urban Māori Authority ($48,880).

It could be that the party didn’t have the correct processes in place, in what is a complicated area of operating a political party. Although the law is clear about what needs to be declared, the details of what should be included is a difficult area, especially if the donations amount to an amalgamation of “in kind” contributions and election spending by candidates. As Trevett’s article above reports, the party president “said Tamihere paid for some party costs out of his own pocket and the party had not realised it was supposed to treat those as donations.”

Nonetheless, the ball is now in the Māori Party’s court to reassure the public, and their voters, that they have integrity when it comes to powerful vested interests. Unfortunately, they aren’t providing a lot of the necessary detail.

About half of the money in question came from John Tamihere, who was less than forthcoming or contrite when replying to a journalist’s question on why he hadn’t been transparent, saying “Because I’m not as perfect as you” – see Tova O’Brien’s Billy Te Kahika outs himself as second Electoral Commission referral to police over donations.

Party president Che Wilson is claiming ignorance and a shambolic state of affairs in the party as his excuse – see RNZ’s Māori Party undeclared donations referred to police. Wilson is quoted saying, “We took over a party that had broken down and as part of the rebuild as volunteers when we got into the thick of the campaign we misinterpreted how we had to report things”.

Similarly, talking to Newshub, Wilson conveys that “they were so focused on issues that needed solving in the lead-up to the election that meant they didn’t have the correct processes” – see Rachel Sadler’s Māori Party undeclared donations: Electoral Commission notified as soon as error was noticed – party president Che Wilson.

Evaluating the party’s responses so far, electoral law expert Andrew Geddis told RNZ’s Morning Report: “That doesn’t strike me particularly as a good excuse, given that these rules are in place for a good reason. And if you as party secretary are taking on the responsibility then its implicit on you to make sure you know what you are doing and that you’ve got the processes in place to be able to meet the legal requirements” – see: Rules around electoral donations very clear – Geddis.

Geddis appears to believe a prosecution is required in this case, because “There’s no point having these rules if people can just ignore them and just walk away with a slap on the hand with a wet bus ticket.” But he adds that a judge might choose a lesser punishment for the party president if there are mitigating circumstances (such as the fact that they have come clean to the Electoral Commission).

Former Labour Party president Mike Williams has spoken out today, saying there’s “no excuse” for failing to disclose the large donations, and the “law is perfectly clear” – see Waatea News’ Māori Party fails to report funding. According to this article, “Williams says John Tamihere, who is a former MP, would know the rules”.

What’s more, Williams argues that the Māori Party’s failure to disclose its funding during the election campaign may have been politically consequential: “It might have altered votes if people knew John Tamihere chucked in $158,00 before the election. That should have been reported before the election. That’s the point of the law”.

Questions raised about who pulls the strings in the Māori Party

The spotlight is now on the three big donors to the Māori Party. On Newshub’s Hui TV programme last night, Mihingarangi Forbes challenged the party president about the funding from the National Urban Māori Authority (NUMA), which John Tamihere is the CEO of, and is contracted to the government to provide Whānau Ora services. But Wilson refused to comment saying “We can only talk about what we’ve done and you’d need to talk to NUMA about that.”

Political commentators Shane te Pou and Tau Henare appeared on the programme, and had very different interpretations of this donation. Te Pou, a former Labour candidate, said: “I think it’s very important the police investigate. If Whanau Ora money has been used – and I use that word ‘if’ – I don’t think that’s a good thing at all. At the end of the day it’s taxpayer money… If I was the minister of Whanau Ora, the first thing in the morning I would write to the Auditor-General and I would ask him to investigate” – see Dan Satherley’s ‘That’s the game’: Māori Party MPs warned attacks will come over donations scandal.

In contrast, Tau Henare called the scandal a “storm in a teacup”, and argued that the problem is with the law rather than the Māori Party: “The reality is we have a law that’s designed to obfuscate, designed to… hide things… The law needs to be looked at, the law needs to be revamped so everybody is clear about their accountabilities. In terms of the Māori Party, I think it’s a bit of a rookie mistake.”

Rightwing blogger David Farrar argues today that the matter raises important questions about the Māori Party’s funding – especially from the mysterious entity, Aotearoa Te Kahu, which gave a single donation of $120,000 – see: Who are the mystery Māori Party funders?.

Farrar has been digging around to find the background of this donor: “Go to the register of limited partnerships and you find they act on behalf of Aotearoa Te Kahu GP Limited. Their shareholder is ATK Nominees Limited. And their shareholder is Morrison Kent Limited. It is fair to assume Morrison Kent are not the actual shareholders but are acting for someone. So this leaves the question who actually controls and funds Aotearoa Te Kahu and made the decision to donate $120,000 to the Māori Party?”

Has the Māori Party been a victim of racism?

At the same time that the Māori Party were referred to the Police, the Electoral Commission also said that the National Party had breached the rules by failing to disclose $35,000 donated last year in three instalments by real estate businessman Garth Barfoot. Che Wilson has suggested, in his interview with Newshub, that because National hasn’t been referred to the Police, it’s a case of the Māori Party being unfairly singled out: “That’s just really sad that the system has its bias and potentially is racist”.

However, the Electoral Commission has been reported as saying that the same rules are being applied, but it hasn’t yet decided whether to also refer National to the police. In her article, Claire Trevett states: “The Electoral Commission said it had asked for an explanation from the National Party and was still assessing the matter. It did not automatically refer all late donations to the police, but considered issues such as the party’s past record and the timeframes involved.”

Blogger No Right Turn has backed up the Māori Party on this, suggesting if the Police choose to prosecute, this will reflect discrimination on their part: “In the past the police (as opposed to the SFO) have generally refused to enforce the law (it’s not ‘real’ crime, you see, unlike someone smoking a joint or walking while brown). But given the party involved and the police’s culture of racism and subservience to power, maybe we might finally see the law enforced this time, though for entirely the wrong reasons” – see: The Māori Party’s hidden donations.

Finally, the Electoral Commission is yet to release the details of the donations received by parties for the 2020 election year, but in February the donations to individual election candidates were published – you can see the details in Claire Trevett’s, Shane Jones, Christopher Luxon, Anna Lorck – who got the most donations in 2020 election?.

New Zealand has a problem with money in politics. National and NZ First have been the subject of Serious Fraud Office investigations. And now that Labour mayors Phil Goff and Lianne Dalziel have been added to the list of fraud investigations, this should cement in the fact that we have a problem across the political spectrum, and at central and local government levels.

But what to do about the problem? A debate is now underway about how to fix the problem of money in politics. I’ve written an opinion piece for The Guardian, arguing that we can’t trust the politicians to fix this, because their self-interest is precisely what has led to a situation where poor regulation allows wealthy interests to dominate the political process – see: Vested interests in New Zealand politics are too big to ignore – we need a Royal Commission.

We’re way beyond the point where tinkering is an option, and I suggest that we can learn from the way that MMP was developed as a solution to problems with our old electoral system: “In the 1980s when a crisis of confidence was developing about the old First-Past-the-Post electoral system, the Labour Government of the time did the right thing by establishing The Royal Commission on the Electoral System. This made the case for our MMP system, which was eventually adopted by voters in a referendum. It’s time for a new Royal Commission to take the problems of vested interests in politics out of the hands of politicians and come up with a fundamental rethink of how to deal with money in politics.”

Danyl Mclauchlan has also written about politicians being part of the problem: “It’s because they literally write the laws, and get to decide what is and is not legal, so the laws around political donations have been written with massive loopholes allowing parties to accept large donations and conceal the identity of the donors” – see: The donations mess reveals a vacuum in our political system. Who will fill it?. He argues that “it’s not in the short-term interest of any party in parliament to seriously fix our donation regime”.

The problem is also made worse, Mclauchlan argues, by the lack of anti-Establishment forces in politics that might rally for major reform. In the past, this role might have been taken on by NZ First and the Greens, but both are hamstrung by current events or are no longer so radical: “now the Green Party occupies an ideologically incoherent space bounded by technocratic centrism and campus wokeness, characterised by an obsequious, fawning fear towards Peters and New Zealand First.”

Former United Future leader Peter Dunne has said we simply won’t get the necessary reform of wealth in politics because of politician self-interest, and he suggests any likely reform of donation rules will only produce more loopholes and workarounds – see: Chances of transparent election campaign funding are close to zero because the politicians who call for it really don’t want it.

Here’s Dunne’s main point: “the more the rules are tightened and tinkered with, the more bureaucratic checks that are imposed, the one certainty is the more politicians and political parties will simply engage in even more elaborate ways of getting around them. And the more we should come to expect election years being clouded by the types of funding controversies we are seeing already this year.”

Of course, there has been reform of donation laws in the past, and this hasn’t halted the problems or prevented scandals. For more on this, see Max Rashbrooke’s A brief history of New Zealand donations scandals.

Rashbrooke concludes: “Past reformers have contemplated fixing all these weaknesses, but have ultimately shrunk back from the task. In the light of the accelerating pace of scandals, that stance is increasingly untenable.”

So, will we get reform? There are an increasing number of voices calling for big change, including a global anti-corruption watchdog – see Yvette McCullough’s Transparency International warns need for political funding reform is urgent. According to this, “Transparency International is warning the need to reform political funding structures is more urgent than ever – and that complacency is leaving the country more vulnerable to corruption.”

However, the same article quotes Jacinda Ardern denying New Zealand has a problem: “That is not the New Zealand politics, that is not the New Zealand democracy I know. So actually I do reject that, I reject that strongly.” It is also reports that an independent inquiry is unlikely: “Although Ardern promised to look at electoral finance laws if she was re-elected, she was inclined to have an in-house review through the normal select committee process.”

Proposed solutions

One of the more radical proposals for reform comes from Peter Dunne, who suggests radical transparency, in which all donations are publicly declared: “all the financing provisions of the Electoral Act could be abolished and replaced with one simple overarching provision: every donation made to a candidate or a political party, whether in kind or cash, from overseas or within New Zealand, whether it be $1 or $1,000,000, should be fully disclosable.”

Dunne also argues that there is already generous state funding of political parties, via the backdoor of parliamentary resources. These are exploited, Dunne says, with the multi-million-dollar budgets actually spent on electioneering, all without any real oversight. He suggests: “a simple requirement for every MP and their party to file an annual audited return of their specific Parliamentary expenditure. The public would quickly prove to be far better monitors of what was reasonable use of public funds by politicians than any set of confusing, ambiguous and often contradictory Parliamentary rules could ever be.”

Most other writers on the topic suggest bans or limits on donations to parties. For example, Action Station’s Laura O’Connell Rapira argues for a cap of $1000 per year being put on donations, and she suggests banning donations from certain industries that create “harm” – anyone who invests in, say, property, pornography, or banking could be disqualified from donating – see: To build a new politics, we must break the grip of big money.

O’Connell Rapira also champions greater use of a little-used mechanism for fundraising – the Protected Disclosure regime administrated by the Electoral Commission: “Currently, the Electoral Act contains a mechanism for anyone wanting to donate to a political party and not wanting their identity disclosed. The clincher? If you want your donation to be anonymous to the public it also has to be anonymous to the party receiving the donation. How it works is that the Electoral Commission aggregates all of the donations and passes them on to parties. The Commission does not identify the dollar amount of individual donations, or the number or names of donors.”

In fact, this mechanism could be greatly expanded and even made compulsory, according to Liam Hehir, who has long-championed this as the best way to allow donations to occur but without donors being able to gain leverage with the politicians – see: A step by step guide for compulsory anonymity in political donations.

In his column, Hehir explains: “The basic concept is to funnel all political contributions through a process that makes it impossible for political parties to know who their donors are. The goal is to reconcile the privacy interests of donors with the legitimate right of the public to assurance their democracy is not for sale.”

Similarly, Andrea Vance has written that politicians simply can’t be trusted to write the rules of fundraising or even to be part of the fundraising process: “As long as there are secret donations and opaque rules, there will be fundraising scandals. Politicians write the rules they so blatantly flout. The parties manage their own accounts and the cash that flows into them. Now it’s pretty obvious they can’t be trusted, it’s time to take away that power and ban them from accepting donations directly. Is it time to change the laws to keep politicians in the dark over electoral donations?” – see: Keep politicians in the dark over election donations.

There are also calls to ban all donations and replace them with taxpayer-funded resources. That’s essentially the argument of Cat MacLennan, who cites the use of state-funding in many other countries – see: Time for state-funded political parties to replace donations.

She does point out that hasn’t necessarily fixed the problem elsewhere, and therefore additional controls on donations are also needed. Like others, MacLennan emphasises the need for large-scale reform that isn’t stymied by politician self-interest: “MPs have made numerous changes to donation laws over the years, but their common characteristic has been that they have effectively amounted only to tinkering. They have failed utterly to address key concerns, or to prevent parties from doing their best to hide donors’ identities.”

A variation on the state funding proposal is made today by Elisha Watson, who outlines how “democracy dollars” could allow citizens to choose which parties to give taxpayer-funded vouchers to – see: A novel way to fix our broken political donations system: flood the market.

Watson is unimpressed with the other calls to regulate donations, using the “hydraulic theory of money” to point out that inevitably all such regulations fail, and money gets through in the same way that water eventually gets through the ground.

Here’s her argument: “Any clever person seeking influence through money will simply redirect their dollars elsewhere to another point of influence that is currently unregulated – people will then grow outraged about this, new regulations flow, and then the dollars flow to the next influence point, and so on. One option is simply stop fighting – but instead of giving up, do exactly the opposite. Flood the market (in this case the market for political donations) with dollars so that even if rich people did make donations in search of influence, it wouldn’t even matter because politicians would be swimming in a proverbial pool of money.”

Former Labour MP Tim Barnett also points to democracy vouchers as a potential way forward, and cites their use in Seattle city elections last year in which voters were issued with $25 vouchers to give to whatever candidate they wished – see: Political party funding in New Zealand.

Barnett’s analysis goes much further than this, and says the problem of money and politics requires “fresh thinking coming from outside the parties”. He proposes six criteria for which to judge the current system, which mostly fails in his view. Overall, he argues, the political funding system here doesn’t work well: “In short, we have ended up with the worst of both worlds – a system full of holes and inconsistencies where the risk of corruption is real, and a skewing towards resourcing the Parliamentary side of organised politics.”

There is a school of thought that all the calls for reform are misplaced, given the various investigations by the Electoral Commission and the Serious Fraud Office shows the wheel of justice are in motion. This is essentially the argument of a recent editorial in The Listener, which says we simply need the political parties to obey the law – see: A simple way to clean up the political donations mess.

Here’s the magazine’s main point: “Just because parties and individuals sometimes fall foul of electoral law does not automatically mean the law needs “reform”, just as restaurants falling foul of hygiene regulations does not necessarily mean there is something wrong with the regulations. Improving compliance with electoral law should be political parties’ first response to problems with handling donations. From the public perspective, seeing parties and individuals charged and/or investigated indicates that the law is working just fine. The area of donations feels messier than usual partly because of some good investigative reporting by RNZ into donations to the New Zealand First Foundation.”

Finally, for the ultimate big picture discussion on why this all matters, see Andrew Geddis’ Money talks: Why the donations crisis goes to the heart of trust in our politics.

Is the National Party off the hook over the Serious Fraud Office donations prosecution? That’s what the party is claiming, pointing out that no National official or MP has been charged.

But of course, there was a National MP involved – albeit one no longer with the party – and he is being prosecuted. In fact, at the time of the alleged offending, Jami-Lee Ross held the very senior role of Party Whip and was known to be close to Bridges. There is also no escaping the fact that the dodgy donations were made to and accepted by the National Party.

News yesterday that Jami-Lee Ross is one of the four going to trial should be a major embarrassment for National. For a very good account of what occurred yesterday, see Sam Hurley’s Jami-Lee Ross speaks out about his ‘outrageous’ SFO charges after name suppression lifts.

In terms of Ross’ surprise charge by the Serious Fraud Office, it’s worth reading Claire Trevett’s very good column today: Jami-Lee Ross SFO charges – blowing the whistle on NZ politics’ greatest own goal (paywalled).

Here’s her succinct summary: “Ross was revealed as one of four men charged by the Serious Fraud Office for alleged involvement in two donations to the National Party which had been broken up into smaller amounts to avoid disclosure. Rarely has anybody been both hero and zero at the same time. In this saga, Ross himself was the heroic whistleblower – it was he who exposed an alleged $100,000 donations rort within the National Party. That was an attempt to discredit Bridges. Instead, Ross is now in court charged with that alleged rort himself – although he has been quick to claim he is innocent and a ‘scapegoat’ for the National Party.”

Trevett nicely backgrounds how Ross came to be charged: “It was yet another twist in one of the most dramatic episodes New Zealand’s Parliament has witnessed, which began in October 2018 when Ross, full of rage, mounted a scathing attack on Bridges’ integrity. He claimed Bridges had ‘directed’ that a donation be split into smaller parts to avoid disclosure. Bridges denied it and Ross delivered an audio recording of a phone call with Bridges that proved nothing at all other than that the donation was talked about. It was Ross too who delivered papers to the police station, the media trailing him through Wellington’s streets as he went, the white knight of justice.”

She says that National should be worried: “In the court of public opinion, the entire story is a rank one for the National Party – regardless of whether they are in the dock. However it is spun, and whoever is involved, it is not a good look for the party. It fuels suspicion… National has a lot more to lose and this will now plague it in an election year, including potentially damaging evidence from those charged. Ross himself has said he will produce evidence as to whodunit”.

National is still arguing that the charges and the donations procured by Ross have little or nothing to do with them. MP Paul Goldsmith even went on TV this morning and said this about the scandal: “We’re watching it closely but it’s not relating directly to us”.

The attempts by National to distance themselves from Ross’ actions are rejected by blogger Martyn Bradbury who says: “Jami-Lee Ross is theirs, they’re responsible for him despite all their deceitful manipulations pretending he’s some rogue lone wolf” – see: Consider the distance National are pretending exists between them and Jami-Lee Ross.

Bradbury argues that Ross “joined National early & rose through the ranks because of the dark skill set they are now damning him for. His head kicker schtick and House of Cards ethics were crafted by the National Party hierarchy who saw talent in his Stormtrooper ways. He became a whip, he was a bag man for the boss, he was muscle for political kneecappings.”

He believes the court trial will end badly for National: “The JLR charges by the SFO are the worst outcome for National. It means the bloody thing won’t die now and could possibly play out in Court during the election. That’s a lot of air time for JLR to endlessly claim Simon is corrupt and release the rest of his hidden evidence.”

Electoral law expert Andrew Geddis said some similar things on RNZ’s Morning Report today: “One of the persons that has been charged is Jami-Lee Ross, who was Chief Whip under Simon Bridges, and was for a while their party ‘bagman’ in Auckland, whose job was to go around raising very big sums of money from particularly the Chinese community to fund the party business. And one two occasions, according to the Serious Fraud Office, he did so unlawfully. Now, how closely voters want to tie Jami-Lee Ross – who was a National Party MP – to the existing party, well, I guess that’s what we are going to be discussing” – see: National Party can’t separate itself from fraud charges against Jami-Lee Ross – expert.

He also suggests that the trial is unlikely to take place before the election – although “that doesn’t of course stop Jami-Lee Ross continuing to speak out if he so wishes”.

Geddis also wrote last month – when the SFO first announced their decision to charge four individuals – speculating on whether this might damage National. He suggesting it would depend on “the degree of culpability that the public assigns to National for being associated with this sort of allegedly unlawful behaviour. Will National be seen as complicit in the alleged offending, or a victim of it?” – see: A political donations powderkeg: on SFO criminal charges and the National Party.

He argued that “the fact no charges may have been laid against them does not necessarily mean that Bridges and the National Party can claim to be completely blameless in this matter.”

And he outlined why he’s not surprised that no National officials, or the party leader, have been charged: “For Bridges to be charged, he pretty much would have to had explicitly told donors something like, ‘I want you to give my party this money in this illegal way.’ Now, much as I know that plenty of inner-city, kombucha drinking liberal types like to hate on our Simon, no political party leader would be that stupid. Not even Simon Bridges. And the National Party secretary’s legal responsibility really amounts to little more than receiving and recording donations, before passing on limited information about those donations to the Electoral Commission. When doing so, he’s entitled to simply rely on what he’s told by donors to the party without having to try and independently verify that it is the truth.”

Some of these questions are also raised briefly in today’s Dominion Post editorial: “More importantly for voters in 2020, it will be hard for Bridges to plausibly claim he had nothing to do with the donations. He too is under pressure” – see: Songs, jokes and serious fraud in New Zealand politics.

National and Bridges are very lucky that this scandal has only fully hit the courts amidst controversy over the NZ First Foundation donations, as the public might be less inclined to follow the detail or see this behaviour as particularly unique.

And due to its own predicament, NZ First is unable to lead the charge against National in their usual manner. Labour and the Greens are also somewhat hamstrung, given that they have chosen not to take a hard line against NZ First over their donations scandal.

The quietness of National’s rivals is already being noted. RNZ says: “Even leaders of other parties like NZ First’s Winston Peters and Green co-leader James Shaw were reluctant to pass comment. ‘You hear of the sub judice rule? Well start observing it,’ Peters said to reporters. Shaw said he couldn’t comment on the particulars of the case, because it is part of a judicial process” – see: National Party donations case: ‘I am now being painted as the scapegoat’ – Jami-Lee Ross.

This will leave most of the debate to commentators and bloggers. And Labour Party blogger Greg Presland has sarcastically mocked Bridges’ apparent pleas of innocence in regard to the scandal – see: National has nothing to be afraid of.

Here’s his list of how little Bridges supposedly knows about what has gone on: “Simon Bridges himself had no idea what was happening. He has not met Zhang Yikun or Colin Zheng or had dinner at their home. He was not told that they wanted to make a $100,000 donation to the National Party. He was not told by Jami-Lee Ross that the money had been paid. He was not going to spend the money on attack ads. He was not aware that the money had been paid into the National Party Botany account. He was not told that the donation would be made by multiple people belonging to one association. He was not aware that the expectation behind the donation was having two Chinese MPs. He did not know that the donation was carved up into non declarable little pieces and transmitted to head office. Colin Zheng has not put his name forward for National’s candidate’s school.”

And even National-aligned blogger David Farrar admits the case is “very embarrassing for National” – see: SFO files charges in National Party donations case. He says: “Even though the party presumably (if correct the charges are against the donors only) did nothing wrong (in fact HQ insisted on getting details for each donor, and verifying they were eligible to donate), it is still a bad look to have charges laid in relation to a donation to you. At a minimum the party should, once the legal issues are dealt with, refund the donation.”

Finally, there are still questions about the twists and turns regarding the name suppression originally granted to the four men, which was lifted yesterday. For an interesting discussion by a journalist involved in this saga, see Barry Soper’s If Jami-Lee Ross didn’t want name suppression why did his lawyers threaten me?