Uncovering that hid in plain sight

Stuff reports:

A new politician has been dragged into the saga of Donghua Liu’s funding of political parties.

National’s Coromandel MP Scott Simpson received a $5000 donation from the controversial Chinese-born property developer for his 2011 election campaign, after meeting Liu about 10 times, including a couple of dinner dates.

The donation was declared in Simpson’s post-election return, and has been uncovered by the Sunday Star-Times during a forensic trawl of donations to MPs.

The donation was declared in 2012. It has been sitting on the Electoral Commission website for a couple of years. There was nothing to uncover.

And I presume a “forensic trawl” is a fancy name for going to the Electoral Commission website and reading the returns online.