National MP *forgets* to declare $178,000 in donations
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11:23 am, May 21st, 2024 - 21 comments
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In breaking news New Plymouth National MP David MacLeod apparently *forgot* to declare $178,000 in declarations to the Electoral Commission.
From Radio New Zealand:
National MP David MacLeod failed to declare 19 candidate donations worth $178,000 to the Electoral Commission, in what he says was an inadvertent error.
The Prime Minister and National leader Christopher Luxon has stood Mr MacLeod down immediately from his roles on both the Environment and Finance select committees.
MacLeod says he thought the return was for the 2023 year only so failed to declare the 18 donations he’d received when he became a candidate in 2022.
However, he also failed to a disclose a $10,000 donation in 2023.
National MP David MacLeod says he never tried to hide any of the $178,000 in candidate donations he failed to declare.
He said he had 44 donors to his campaign, he missed declaring one $10,000 donation and mistakenly believed he didn’t need to declare another 18 that were received in 2022.
“I made a mistake with the return and I’m trying to be upfront and correct the situation.
“I’ve never ever tried to hide these donations.”
There are three rather startling questions that arise.
How could he not be aware of the obligation to declare these donations?
How could he forget to declare the $10,000 donation received in election year?
And most importantly what did he spend $207,000 on? His 2023 electoral return only records $22,826 in campaign expenses.
He has now filed an amended return. Among the donors missing from his original return are heavyweight National donors such as Trevor Farmer, Mary Wyborn and Gary Layne who each gave $10,000 in early November 2022.
National may have to review its return of large donations for 2022. Farmer, Wyborn and Lane each made significant contributions to National in that year but these particular payments are not included. It looks like they gave more than what was declared a;though no doubt they will claim that candidate donations are not caught by the regime which is for party donations.
And I wonder if other marginal electorates received similar levels of largesse?
Obviously the Electoral Commission will need to inveestigate this further. And if knowledge of the inaccuracy is established he faces the prospect of being found to have committed a corrupt practice.
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He's been stood down effective immediately. That is good.
He must resign as an MP now. This perception of corruption can not be tolerated.
The last time this happened IIRC there was a slap on the wrist, amended returns were filed and everyone forgot about it.
Will be interesting to hear the Greens views on his behaviour
I doubt the Electoral Commission would have the balls to carry this to prosecution. So many times people have made "mistakes" and to my knowledge an MP has never been made to resign over it.
The failure of the National Party organisation to pick this up before the returns were filed suggest it is not up to scratch.
Luxon will privately be furious, however he portrays it publicly.
Heads will roll!
The Electoral Commission don't prosecute, they just refer to the police. Now that it's public, it seems difficult not to at least do that much.
The current political donation system is a free playground for the morally corrupt and an irresistible temptation for overly ambitious candidates, who may suffer unduly strong
partypeer pressure, to slide down and ignore or even lose their moral compass.Nah, according to RNZ political reporter interviewed on 9 to noon, the Nats (who worked out his misfiling themselves in an internal audit) have just kicked him off the FINANCE subcommittee and the FASTTRACK legislation subcommittee. He loses thousands in income from losing a position as chair of one.
His message was he 'left off'' donations from the 2022 financial year, and only declared those for 2023. Nearly $200K is quite a lot of money to hide under the carpet. Yeh, finance sub-committee member. Creative accounting.
No Right Turn points out that misfiling electoral returns is a CRIME.
PM Luxon .. your move!! We are watching!!
On past form, as far as his party are concerned, it'll be something like "poor old David … shame he had to be one who got caught … with any luck it'll all blow over … must find something for him though, in case it doesn't". In other words, they don't really see anything very wrong in it.
Another stunning alumini from Fonterra U, maybe we should just let the CCP buy it out and do a really thorough purge as is their want, a few dissapperances wouldn’t go amiss.
To state the bleeding obvious, this scale of National donor electorate campaign funding is very, very hard for the left to beat.
The left candidate who got equivalent donor funding would be too centrist to be useful in a left government. Because they would be bought.
FFS Ad that has always been the game. The right buy elections, the left have to be smarter.
Mindboggling!
From the Candidate Handbook – General Election 2023:
The return form for candidates for the 2023 General Election even contains an example in the text and these exemplars where shown in the form with 2022 dates on pg. 2 (Part A) and pg. 4 (Part B)!!
National MP stood down by Luxon. He failed to declare a total of $178,000 made in 19 donations, $168,000 was donated in 2022, and $10,000 in 2023.
$168,000 donated to a new candidate in a non-election year. Unbelievable! I was a candidate for two elections two decades ago. That kind of money is just boggling, and does raise strong concerns about undue influence.
As the OP asks, what happened to the rest of the money that was not spent in the election period? Was it spent beforehand? Did it get sent to HO to be part of the national campaign? Would that be required to be reported? Was it used in other pre-election campaigns such as Three Waters?
Donors from Auckland gave $50,000 of that $168000. With MMP the argument it was for a marginal electorate does not wash UNLESS the particular candidate was of some particular value to the donors.
This whole issue has a strong odour about it, that Shakespeare in Hamlet ACT 1described.
Anyway, keep smiling, National!
https://interestingliterature.com/2021/07/hamlet-something-rotten-state-of-denmark-meaning-analysis/
I’d suggest that the ability to fundraise loads of dollars is an if not the major determining factor in the National Party candidate selection process, i.e., show us the money.
And because I am not hearing huge and widespread condemnation, I fear that Marcellus was right. As my interestingliterature citation above says. "this rottenness has come to infect not just the royal marital bed but the whole ‘state’ of Denmark."
More is rotting here than insufficient attention to the paperwork………
Claire already knows the outcome of all/any investigations. It's a mere "stuff-up" that will hurt not end his ministerial ambitions. I don't think she's just guessing, she's a functioning piece of the right's PR ecosystem. Will Audrey also ride to the rescue? I have a compound name for them – "Claudrey" – which rhymes with "tawdry".
This amount donated to a candidate was apparently at least double the next most supported. Fishy! I am suspecting attempt at concealment here.
It will be interesting to see how much can be matched to expenditures, how much transferred to Head Office.
Not cabinet material, not MP material. Anyone for a byelection? 🙂
Bag Man
many of these declared large donations arent from the Taranaki area but the 0.01% from Auckland or the strangely named Toorak Chambers Hamilton , a Waikato regional national party funding vehicle- shades of the NZ First funding vehicle.
Clearly since the candidate expenses are roughly 10% of the money raised it would go back to National HQ as a lump sum and the big donors from up north have some cover for the huge sums they have made personally to 'own the party'
It seems like $80,000 of donations was washed through this electorate but ended up in HQ . This would be on top of the $10 mill raised by the Party itself
Well theres certainly no conflict of National's (or indeed NActFirsts) Interests. Which is solely money, And to the detriment of OUR Environment
Maybe the Investigation…will show the rest of us how bad they actually are ? FYI, I, and I'm sure most here, already know how bad they are !
Apparently it is not a conflict of interest if it involves a National MP. They are beyond such assumptions, you know.
If it was from a party of the left it would definitely be a COI and the ZB Hosking would be screaming for his/her immediate resignation.
Will the police prosecute and the court declare his election invalid?
Not likely.