More about donation returns

by frog

Following on from my last post, the donation declaration rules are fairly simple and the main point in this context is that:

That, when added to all the donation received from the same source in the preceding 12 months exceeds $20,000 a return of party donation exceeding $20,000 must be filed within 10 working days.

That’s section 54 of the Electoral Finance Act. The other parties are saying that (except for the last ten days) no one has made any donations totalling $20,000 or more, other than two to National and one to Act. Unusual?

The real issue is not big money, it is transparency. Every party will have it’s large donors but the public has a right to know who they are.

Section 98 of the Electoral Finance Act allows parties to spend up to $1,000,000 plus $20,000 for each electorate contested by a candidate for that party. That’s a potential total of $2.4 million if a party stands candidates in every seat. Are Labour and National, who both spent close to or more than their entire $2.4 million allocation last election, planning to spend the same amount again this time around, raised purely though cake stalls and movie fund-raisers. Or are they planning to run much smaller, cheaper campaigns this time around? Or are they borrowing and expecting some big donations in the next few weeks?

And what about some of the small parties? We are already learning in detail about NZ First’s interesting accounting procedures, but does United Future have enough small donors to fund an entire nationwide election campaign without any big donations? United Future has declared no donations over $10,000 in 2006 or 2007 either so its reserves could well be running low. Its last large donation was $12,000 in 2005 from a Sky City casino.