More political funding by so called charity

1 News reports:

A branded van, used by Te Pāti Māori candidate Takutai Kemp last year, has raised fresh questions amid concerns over allegations relating to Manurewa Marae.

The late-model, 12-seater van was used by Kemp in her bid for the Tāmaki Makaurau seat last year. The vehicle was wrapped in the candidate’s branding and featured prominently in Kemp’s marketing campaign as a mobile billboard.

Subsequent registration checks of the vehicle show that it is owned by the Manurewa Marae Trust Board. Kemp was the chief executive of the marae before the election.

That may be a problem for the marae as it is a registered charity. Charities are restricted in what political activities they can engage in. 

Charities Services, which is part of Internal Affairs, told Q+A “registered charities must not support or oppose particular parties or candidates.”

Yet they do, and they keep getting away with it, with barely a wet bus ticket slap.

You can spend $500,000 on a political campaign, and then all you have to do to escape action is pay your CEO a higher salary, so he can then repay the “loan”. Where’s the incentive not to do it in the first place?