The reason we know about John Key’s Antoine’s dinner donations was that they were grouped into a single donation that had to be declared. Not that we know who all the individual donors are: they’re hidden behind the dinner loophole.
But what about all the other dinners where each seat is considered a separate donation? It’s likely that tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars could be shifted through fund-raisers like that and not a single cent would have to be declared.
There are certainly other dinner fundraising events run by National than just the Antoine ones. Indeed National Party insider Matthew Hooton made it clear there are others, and that he had attended them, in a comment yesterday.
What’s more concerning is the suggestion in the same thread that single donors have split large donations up simply by sending multiple guests to one of these dinners and thus avoided disclosure.
We can’t know because National are keeping their donors secret.
In fact we can’t know if any of the businesses that have received sweetheart deals from the National government have hidden large donations to National using this loophole.
I think it’s time John Key told us who his secret donors are. As he said when he legislated to have the GCSB intrude on our private lives: If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear.
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