David Cunliffe had a trust set up for campaign donations. The structure kept donors anonymous and was within electoral rules, but was a bad look. He named three of the donors and paid the other two back. Total donations equaled $17,800 with $8,300 of that returned.
At the time, John Key called for Cunliffe to name his anonymous donors (even though the money was returned to them).
John Key received 21 five thousand dollar campaign donations (total $105k) via a dinner, and another $60k through another. He acknowledged there have been many other dinners.
Paddy Gower asked him to name these anonymous donors on the Nation this morning, Key refused.
By Key’s logic he now has to either pay back the $165k – and all the other secret dinner money – or name the donors.
Not to do so wouldn’t just be tricky, but hypocritical. As Key himself has said:
David Cunliffe has a responsibility to make sure he tells the public who the other two are or he’s going to labelled as having a secret agenda which none of us can verify one way or the other.
The money or the secret names John. You can’t keep both.
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