A Commissioner who donated $10,000 to their future Minister

One News reports:

A key role for the Human Rights Commission is to be independent of the Government and to hold it to account on its human rights record – including on race relations.

Foon also donated $1000 to National Party candidate Tania Tapsell’s campaign in the same year.

“I spoke earlier about having received and declared an in-kind donation from the Foon family in 2020 when I was a back bench MP,” Allan said in a statement this evening.

“It is fair to say I couldn’t recall all of the details of all of my donors when questioned earlier, but having had the opportunity to review I can say I also declared a $1500 cash donation from Meng and Ying Foon in 2020 as well.”

Allan had earlier said: “I didn’t take any monetary donations from Meng Foon.”

A company called Triple Eight Investments Limited also provided Kiri Allan a rent subsidy worth $9185 according to the declaration.

Triple Eight Investments has three directors, including Meng and Ying Foon.

“The in-kind donation I referred to was from a company that the Foons were directors of, for a rent subsidy on a campaign office space.

“This was a campaign office, not an electorate office, and no parliamentary funds were used,” Allan said in her statement.

This is incredibly bad judgement from Meng Foon. Once he was appointed a Human Rights Commissioner, he should not have been donating money to any MPs election campaigns.

He donated over $10,000 to Kiri Allan, who is now the Minister responsible for deciding if he gets reappointed, and $1,000 to National’s Tania Tapsell. Both donations were inappropriate, but the Allan one especially has now created a significant conflict of interest.

Foon has probably doomed any chance of reappointment now. It would be a terrible look to reappoint someone who donated $10,000 to the Minister, even if she recuses herself. And I can’t see National reappointing him, if they win.