Foreign donations are already effectively banned in NZ

The RNZ headline:

NZ unlikely to follow Oz move to ban foreign donations

That is because we already effectively ban them.

The Australian government has unveiled plans to ban political donations from overseas and introduce a register for foreign lobbyists.

Under New Zealand law, political donations from overseas are allowed as long as they don’t exceed $1500.

Or to put it another way, they are banned unless they are under $1,500. The $1,500 is simply a de minimis level at which below it is not worth trying to track donations. If someone gives you $100, you don’t need to check their citizenship or residency.

Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said National had always found a way around the donations regime.

This is the man who lied to Parliament (and the public and the media) about Owen Glenn’s donation and whose party had many years of false donation returns that they had to correct after they were exposed. If he had any shame he would never ever talk about donations and transparency again.