2009 Party Donors
The Electoral Commission has published the donation returns for 2009 for political parties. Only donations of greater than $10,000 have the identity of the donors disclosed. So who are the parties attracting the major donations?
The party with the largest number of large donors is the Greens, who had $147,462 of large donations. In order they were:
- Stuart Bramhill $19,500
- Jeanette Fitzsimons $15,643
- Metiria Turei $15,307
- Russel Norman $15,250
- Keith Locke $14,468
- Catherine Delahunty $14,428
- Kevin Hague $13,928
- Sue Kedgley $13,868
- Kennedy Graham $13,302
- Sue Bradford $11,768
Mr Bramhill is a regular large donor to the Greens. I would have to check but think his total donations exceed $100,000 over time.
Next largest was ACT with one $20,000 donation from The Virtual Bucket Ltd. That company is owned by Roger Beattie of Christchurch. Mr Beattie is well known entrepreneur who wants to farm wekas!
Third was Jim Anderton’s Progressives who banked $15,000 from Juken Nissho Ltd. Their declaration is technically incorrect as there is no company of that name. In 2004 they changed their name to Juken New Zealand Ltd.
It is a large company with $224 million turnover in 2009. They made a $165 million loss, but nice they could spare some money for Jim.
Fourth was the Maori Party, with co-leader Pita Sharples donating $11,142 in fortnightly installments.
Fifth was Labour with Phil Goff donating $10,063. I suspect Labour are still tithing their MPs a proportion of their salaries, and only Goff exceeded the threshold of $10,000.
National did not have any donors give over $10,000 in 2009.