The Serious Fraud Office has started an investigation into donations made to the Labour Party in 2017.
Annoyingly, they have given few details, so speculation will be rife.
They say:
“The SFO is presently conducting four investigations in relation to electoral funding matters. A fifth matter that the agency investigated relating to electoral funding is now before the courts.
“We consider that making the current announcement is consistent with our past practice in this area of electoral investigations and in the public interest,” the Director of the SFO, Julie Read, said.
In the interests of transparency and consistency, the SFO has announced the commencement of all these investigations.”
The SFO does not identify who was leading the party at the time of the alleged donations, Andrew Little or Jacinda Ardern, nor is any detail given about the nature or size of the donations.
One thing is sure; it’s not likely to be National’s missing $100k, unless Jami-Lee Ross really was a Machiavellian genius.
UPDATE: It appears the investigation may be into donations made at a ‘silent’ art auction in 2017. In February, Labour acknowledged that two men facing SFO charges along side National Party bag man Jami-Lee Ross and another man over donations to the Tories, had made donations to Labour as well.
Labour Party president Claire Szabo said at the time that Zheng Hengjia donated $10,000 by buying a piece of art at a silent auction in April 2017 and Zheng Shijia donated $1940 in 2018.
Szabo noted both donations were included in the Labour Party return filed in the respective years.
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