Banks must now submit correct return

• Mike Smith
• 12 years ago
• Categories: accountability, democratic participation, electoral commission, Ethics, john banks, john key, local body elections, police

John Key is wrong, John Banks has broken the law. He just did not get prosecuted. The return of donations he signed and submitted in 2010 is false, as the Police have stated. He should now correct it, or he is still in breach of the law.

The Local Electoral Act (Section 110) requires that returns of expenses and donations are to be kept and available for public inspection for a period of seven years from the date of the election. Section 109(2) states that the  return “must be in the form prescribed by  Schedule 2 or to similar effect.” Schedule 2 states:

[Here set out the name and description of every person or body of persons from whom or which any donation (whether of money or of the equivalent of money or of goods or services or of a combination of those things) of a sum or value of more than $1,000 (such amount being inclusive of any goods and services tax and of a series of donations made by or on behalf of any one person that aggregate more than $1,000 (inclusive of any goods and services tax)) was received by the candidate or by any other person on the candidate’s behalf for use by or on behalf of the candidate in the campaign for his or her election. The amount of each donation received is to be set out separately. If a donation of a sum of more than $1,000 was received from an anonymous person, the amount of the donation must be stated and the fact that the person who made the donation is anonymous must also be stated.]

We now know from the files released by the Police that John Banks directly and personally sought donations from Kim Dotcom and  from another person, as yet unknown. He was also handed a donation by the Chief Executive of SkyCity in the SkyCity office, who stated it was made clear to John Banks that the donation was not to be regarded as anonymous.

The return that is now to be kept “in the electoral officer’s office, or at some other convenient place to be appointed by the chief executive of the local authority,…for a period of 7 years after the date of the election to which it relates, and during that period the return must be open to inspection by any person” is false.

The reasons that the return is kept available for  inspection are obvious; precisely to guard against the sort of devious behaviour demonstrated by Banks. The return should and must be corrected to protect the record.

Section 133  of the Local Electoral Act states as follows:

(1) Every candidate commits an offence who fails to transmit a return of electoral expenses in the prescribed form to the electoral officer within the prescribed period.

(2) Every person who commits an offence against subsection (1) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $1,000 and, if he or she has been elected, to a further fine not exceeding $400 for every day on which he or she continues to act until the return is transmitted.

John Banks’ return does not comply with the prescribed form. He is therefore in breach of Section 133.

Section 109 (4) states regarding the return of election expenses that it is “the duty of every electoral officer to ensure that this section is complied with.” Section 138 further elaborates this duty:

 If the electoral officer at any election or poll—

• (a) receives a written complaint that an offence under this Part has been committed; or

• (b) believes for any other reason that an offence under this Part may have been committed,—

the electoral officer must report that matter to the Police together with the results of any enquiries made by the electoral officer that he or she considers appropriate.

(2) Subsection (1) does not prevent any person from reporting an alleged offence to the Police.