Big donations to ACT
The Herald reports:
Act will declare $850,000 of donations on Monday from some of the wealthiest New Zealanders, including a $100,000 donation from billionaire Graeme Hart, who tops the rich list.
Act leader David Seymour says the donations are part of a drive by the Act party which has raised almost $1 million. The remaining roughly $150,000 has come from smaller donations, which do not have to have their donors declared.
Alongside Hart, the big donors are Rod Drury, Craig Turner, Graham Edwards, Dame Jenny Gibbs, Murray Chandler, and John Harman, who donated $100,000 each.
Stephen Jennings, Grant Baker, and Mike Thorburn donated $50,000 each.
Seymour said the donations were from people who were not “particularly political”, and he did not know conclusively whether any of the names on the list were Act party members.
He said the donors were “worried about two things: the state of democracy, the rushed legislation and the uncertainty it creates; and the policy direction which they see as being anti-aspirational and I think the reason they have connected that with Act is they want to see meaningful change in New Zealand”.
That is a huge amount of money to collect from one donation drive. To me that indicates two things:
- The donors see ACT as performing well and pushing policies they like, and are donating as they want ACT to do well at the election and maintain or grow their number of MPs
- The donors think a change of government is likely or at least quite achievable. You don’t donate $100,000 just so a party can be in opposition. You donate as you think that party could well end up in Government, and you want them to have a greater influence on the future Government.
So great to see people willing to donate to parties they support, and that under our good electoral laws their donations are disclosed promptly.