The Counties Manukau Pacific Trust and the Len Brown campaign

The Sunday Star-Times reports:

Local Government Minister Rodney Hide has said he will complain to the auditor-general over a donation to the campaign, because he believes it came from an entity with ties to the Manukau City Council, which Brown headed before becoming mayor of the super city.

Brown’s 2010 returns, filed on Friday, show a $3375 donation from the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust, which administers Manukau’s Pacific Events Centre.

I think it is essential the Auditor-General investigates, because the links between this trust and Len Brown’s campaign are numerous.

The CMPT is a charitable trust. Donating (money or services) to a political campaign goes against that charitable status, and the Charities Commission and IRD could well ask questions about this. The donation may put at risk the millions of dollars of tax free grants and donations they get. If I was a Trustee, I’d want to know who authorised this.

But not only is the CMPT a charitable trust, it is one which has been hugely funded by the ratepayers of Manukau. The CMPT was set up by Manukau Mayor Barry Curtis in July 2000. The Manukau City Council appoint two of the seven members of the electoral college that appoints trustees, and can designate sucessor appointing organisations for the other members.

Three, possibly four, CMPT people were on the eight strong Len Brown campaign team. Trustees Karen Avery and Mike Hutcheson were on the inner cabinet team of eight, plus CMPT CEO Richard Jeffrey. In addition to those three, it is rumoured that one key campaign staffer was also on the CMPT payroll, as well as the CEO. I won’t name him as it has not been confirmed, but I understand media have asked him if it was true, and he has not returned their calls.

Regardless, you have a hue cross-over between Len’s campaign team and the Trust. And who funds the Trust?

Well the Manukau City Council gave them a $9 million grant. Plus $385,000 a year in a service contract. And on top of that they have effectively donated all their land by way of a 99 year lease for $1/year. On top of that the ratepayers through the old MCC, guarantee a $7.5m overdraft facility for the CMPT.

This means that under the law, for financial reporting purposes, the CMPT is “considered a Council controlled entity”.

The CMPT incidentially has negative working capital of $500,000 and made a $652,000 loss last year, so you would think they would be focused on that – not on helping Len Brown get elected.

Having the CEO of a charitable trust that receives ratepayer funding, working for a partisan political campaign is a huge conflict of interest – made even worse by the fact he had the trust donate billboard space to the Brown campaign.

How much work time did the CEO spend on the Brown campaign? Is it true that another Brown campaign member was an employee of the CMPT – if so for how many months was he employed by both the CMPT and the Brown campaign?

And to make things even murkier, we find out that CEO Richard Jeffrey was one of the attendees at the secret Volare dinner, and has also just been appointed to a CCO for his services to the campaign.

This is the same Richard Jeffrey quoted in the Herald in July 2010 as praising Len Brown for his relationship with the events centre. The Herald forgot to mention that he was a member of the Brown campaign team in the article.