Party donor returns

The Electoral Commission has the donations made last year to each party on-line.

I do feel very sorry for ACT – their large donations dried up to only $32,000 – a result of the Brash effect.

Amazed Sky City gave $12,000 to Progressive – a party on 1%

Labour’s foreign billionaire is down for $300,000 of his $500,000. Unions put in $160,000 plus whatever was donated under $10,000 reporting threshold per union.

No-one really donates much to the Greens but their own MPs through the good old tithe.

National got in a whopping $1.88 million – well done. It was good they could spend up to the limit allowed.

As with Labour many donations were effectively anonymous. In fact almost all of National’s were.

Now some people get excited over this, but the law was specifically worded to allow anonymous donations. And remember that when a donation is anonymous, the MPs and party don’t know who it came from, so there can be no favours for donors (which is what the disclosure laws are designed to stop or minimise).

If Labour wanted to it could get a majority to change the law to ban anonymous donations. It has chosen not to.

I would also point out that this Government is known as being very vengeful against individuals and companies that criticise or don’t support it. Many professional directors say they are scared to publicly associate with a party because of retribution from the Beehive. This is probably the main reason why so many donors wish to be anonymous – fear of retribution.