Written By:
mickysavage - Date published:
2:43 pm, April 1st, 2022 - 43 comments
Categories: act, elections, national -
Tags:
Last week I posted about how Act had within the past few weeks received $950,000 in donations. National has guzumped this and has just announced that it will shortly be filing declarations announcing that it has received $1.8 million in donations all of which were over $30,000 in value.
The breakdown is in this Herald article:
Donated $250,000
Graeme Hart
Murray Bolton
Nick Mowbray
Donated $100,000
Trevor Farmer
Bayley family
Craig Heatley
Graeme Harrison
Gary Lane
Ben Gough
Jim Speedy
Donated $40,000-$50,000
Mark Wyborn
Mike Thorburn
Jeff Douglas
Lani Hagaman
Peter Vela
Hugh Jones
Of those who donated to National Trevor Farmer, Graeme Hart, and Mike Thorburn also recently donated significant amounts to Act.
This shows how in lock with each other National and Act are. It looks like they were engaged in significant fund raising projects at the same time and even have some of the same donors helping them out.
And fancy having this amount of spare cash and thinking that the country was in a bad state and needed change.
It is a good idea to get this out of the way this year and have the publicity done and dusted now.
But be prepared. National and Act are well resourced and raring to go. Next year is going to be a really interesting year.
Update: I have just realised this article is in the Herald Premium section. Freaking typical. They have major news that affects the state of our democracy but they restrict access to it to those of us who can afford and are prepared to have an account.
Update 2: Labour has a fundraising campaign running because of the news. Details are here.
If someone wants to provide the Green Party details I will put them up too.
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
New Zealand – we have the finest democracy money can buy /sigh
Hopefully your "be prepared" message is heard primarily by the Labour Party and its leaders.
Any time someone wants to generate a decent Labour event with a useful ticket price …
Looks like a bloody old boys club scratching each other’s backs.
It is hard to understand why they are so aggrieved. I hate to say it but rich are still doing fine.
Yes, but they've lost most of their political power and influence micky. That means as much to them as making ship loads of loot.
Well I think that 'wealth supremacists' take pleasure not only from their own somewhat obscene wealth but also from the degree of wealth that separates them from the 'unworthy' thus they not only seek to buy politicians that will help enrich themselves but also desire those politicians to more impoverish and reduce to penury those they deem 'unworthy'. The 'unworthy' must be kept in their place of misery.
I would say that there are several straws in the wind that are making big business very nervous.
Labour's apparent commitment to Maori co-governance (though not declared as a policy, they appear to be implementing He Puapua) – with 3 waters being the first step along the road. I dont' think we can underestimate what a profound shift in our democracy this co-governance proposal is. And, business is very, very, nervous about it.
What looks like an inability to get traction on any major infrastructure project. They've delivered or made progress on the ones already underway – but new projects seem to struggle to get off the drawing board – and announcing then walking back projects (Auckland cycle bridge), is just a disaster for business confidence.
The apparent disdain for the tourism sector. The Covid-related flip-flopping around the border-closures; and lack of understanding that you can't just turn tourism off and on like a tap.
And, in conjunction with the Greens, the contradictions around managing greenhouse gasses in the farming sector.
A lot of this is uncertainty. And business hates uncertainty (yes, they can manage crises, but they don't like doing it).
All of those things will be contributing to money going towards National/Act.
We may not like it, but from their perspective it's eminently understandable.
Co-governance of fresh water is nothing new. The Waikato has been in co-management since 2010. Did National declare that as a policy in the 2008 elections?
https://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/community/your-community/iwi/waikato-river-co-management/
3 waters is a little bit bigger. only a little though.
"Did National declare that as a policy in the 2008 elections?"
I doubt it, because the WRA is a co-governance entity established out of the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act 2010, a settlement that was signed in August 2008 under a Labour government.
"Co-governance of fresh water is nothing new. "
Co-governance of local natural resources is a very different proposition to co-governance over water systems across the entire country.
I note the original bank-roller of ACT into being, Alan Gibbs does not appear on either list athough his ex-wife is on ACT's big donor list.
Two other names once closely aligned to ACT and National, Michael Fay and David Richwhite have also disappeared. Both were fingered over the Winebox Affair so that may be why.
Hmmm, a lot of DP is planned? Costs money if you’re gonna do it properly.
Good God another Mortica has risen from the Crypt. Paula Benefit is doing a Michelle Boag and has been rattling the tin around the rich listers and brought all the dosh in for the National Party. I know one is not meant to get personal but she has a bit of a look of Mortica does our Paula. Happy days.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/national-party-donations-paula-bennett-organises-18-million-in-funds-from-wealthy-new-zealanders/X33SIFFZ2HEOH5VFWOMCAT6M4M/
I feel that is very much a slur upon the character of Morticia
Apologies to Mortica Barfly. You are correct. Both females were pretty ghastly and Mortica does not deserve their comparison.
Agreed.
I wonder if Paula B is looking ahead to her future ? Maybe the next chair of the National Party ? Mr Goodfellow can't be there much longer ?
Nothing like a bit of good fashioned envy politics.
you should take it as a compliment to the current government that these people take them and their policies so seriously.
but maybe also wonder why there isn’t a left rich in New Zealand. Shouldn’t be simply a money thing.
Envy is when you want the thing someone else has for yourself. It's frustrated greed. Thinking that nobody should have that thing because it is disproportionate and gives the owner illegitimate power over others, isn't envy. It's something else. Maybe it's principle?
Envy? Not at all.
Motivation? Yes. I've just chipped into Labour as a result.
A small gesture but I suspect Labour has strength in numbers.
This is our strength. Little but often. I have put them on my payee list fortnightly.
And what will major donors want for their money
We should start a list …
Power, access to power and profiting from power. Apart from that, money, wealth, fortunes, fame, recognition and at the end, large tombs.
To the point as ever mac1. Your 'and at the end, large tombs' shows the fantasies buried under that list perfectly.
History lurches with such turning points, in which systemic corruption, or the reaction against it, changed the course of world events.
This story begins in Afghanistan before going back five centuries to zoom in on one of the great 'epoch-making' hinges of history, before coming nearer to where we wait and watch as our era's hinges creak ajar…
https://aeon.co/essays/corruption-has-shaped-history-why-do-we-still-ignore-it
Great article, JO. It may well have influenced my somewhat more than jaundiced musings today here. It is as it is, but does it have to be?
Tax cuts, for starters, and the Bright Line Test gone by lunchtime.
Interest deductibility on investment properties.
I am sure some want to called "Sir"
Looking at this article – especially table number 1
"Big donors, big donations: descriptive statistics of party donations in excess of theanonymity disclosure thresholds, 1996–2019, in real 2020 dollars"
https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/pq/article/download/6818/5966/9542
It doesn't seem that there is a significant difference between Nat + Labour (12 million vs 10 million) in large donations.
[NB: this is a once-over-lightly glance at the article – I'm perfectly willing to be corrected on any misunderstanding of the statistics involved]
I think you need to reread it. Anonymous donations definition has changed over the years. The current donations are massive ones that need to be declared pretty well immediately.
There is also this passage:
"[T]his data suggests that individually anonymous donations may be on the increase, as they have risen in successive elections. They have also flowed disproportionately to National over this shorter period ($14 million compared to $4 million for Labour, for example). Such anonymous aggregate donations account for two thirds of National’s donations. The large amount of reported donations beneath the disclosure threshold received by the National Party has also been rising over time. Either there is growth in the number of people willing to donate to National under the threshold or they are increasingly avoiding the disclosure threshold."
Yes, I did read that section. However, it was in relation to the below-the-threshold donations, rather than the headline grabbing large ones, which were referenced in the OP.
Referring back to Table 1 – it appears to me that N & L are on the same playing field, with major donations.
No they are not. Total up the $30k plus donations for both parties over the past decade then come back and argue the point.
Well those figures are the aggregates from 1996–2019, in real 2020 dollars – for above-the-threshold donations.
So that does cover the last decade.
If you think that there is something wrong about the table or the calculation, then just explain what it is.
The difference is a few really wealthy and many quite poor people on the left giving regularly over years, against the big funders of the right gathering to try to defeat any laws or changes they see as slowing their ability to gather in wealth.
This means the Government is actually making an impression!!
Some of the wealthy donators listed under National and Act may have received Government covid subsidies.
Hope they paid them back.
I read the list as pretty much the 'usual suspects' in terms of donations to National.
They're all (I gather) pretty regular donors.
And some (at least) donate to both Labour and National.
To me, this all seems pretty much business as usual in the murky area of political fundraising.
So list the donors that gave more than $30k to Labour. Here is your chance.
Really? It's publicly available information via the elections NZ website:
https://elections.nz/assets/Party-donations-and-loans/2021-returns/Labour-Party-Annual-Return-2020.pdf
From 2020: Robert Smellie & Mark Todd, as individuals, various unions, and what looks like trusts, etc.
Just like the Unions on the left. No big deal
Yep the Unions have given Labour $1.8 million in the past year and $950k to the Greens. Are you embarrassed that you have said something that is so clearly untrue?
Lol "embarrassed" he'd probably have to look it up – I suspect the concept is foreign to him.
Labour took 1.6m in 2017 and 1.5m last year. What's your point?
The Tories too have donors.
https://twitter.com/ByDonkeys/status/1509414334828589059