National raises record $5 million in 2022, ten times Labour’s total
The National Party raised $5,116,035.63 in donations in 2022, a figure believed to be a record.
It is even higher than recent election year tallies, when parties tend to raise the most money. In 2020, National raised $2.8m, in 2017 it raised $4.6m and in 2014 it raised $3.8m. In 2019, which like 2022, was the year before an election year, National raised just $1,221,867.
National blitzed rival Labour, which raised less than a tenth of this, declaring $419,364.66.
After National, the next largest sum of donations was declared by Act, who raised $2,081,331.19. Most of these donations are already public knowledge as they were above the threshold for quick declaration.
The rate at which the 1% and their 9% enablers are donating to National and ACT to defend the rigged capitalism that sees them pay less tax is nothing short of class war, but the problem is Identity Politics have stolen the political vocabulary for the Left to fight back with!
Watching the remarkable push back from the lobbyists the rich have put out to talk down any tax justice against them has reminded us class is the fundamental fault line in NZ and identity politics are simply a distraction.
Since the death of Bruce Jesson, the majority of the NZ Left wing intelligentsia (with the bold exceptions of Professor Jane Kelsey, Dr Wayne Hope, Max Harris and Professor Susan St John) have capitulated to free market capitalism and Left wing activism has in turn become identity focused rather than class focused and as such simply doesn’t have the intellectual muscle required to challenge neoliberal economic hegemony.
The woke are great at organising a ‘free-the-nipple’ rally for militant vegan queer ally mommy bloggers, not so good at taxing the rich.
The woke are great at the low hanging fruit of identity politics because the solution is always exclusion of those who don’t accept identity politics dogma, but they are very quiet when it comes to class warfare in the form of a rigged capitalism because they themselves are middle class and want to benefit from that rigged capitalism thank you very much.
We need a new taxation and regulation model to stop the neoliberal rot. We need to remove the yoke of taxation from the 90% and reset it to the 10% richest.
With National wanting to give landlords eviction rights in time to house the predicted explosion of 100 000 new exploitable migrant workers due here over the next 12 months into our current housing crisis and infrastructure gridlock, we have class warfare this election and none of the political vocabulary to articulate it because ‘Pure Trans Joy’ is as good as the woke got.
With the looming economic recession, the electorate will turn to the Left for our solutions and will find the Left cancelling people for misusing pronouns and hate speech.
The electorate will hate us.
How come the Woke be all brave when it comes to attacking a woman and old dykes in the town square and literally forcing them from that town square, but somehow are completely silent over how the rich are rigging our economy and depriving us of the tax needed to build the very social infrastructure that the woke pretend to care about?
How come the Woke be so brave when it’s old women, but are silent wee mice when it comes to the 1% who have all the actual power?
The Left urgently needs to be arguing for economic justice, not the easily triggered micro aggression minefield of social justice!
We need to be arguing for more State capacity funded by taxing the mega rich so that Universal Left social policy can be implemented.
There’s no point making workers pay more to rebuild our resilience, tax the rich!
There are 14 Billionaires in NZ + 3118 ultra-high net worth individuals with over $50million, let’s start with them, then move onto the Banks, then the Property Speculators, the Climate Change polluters and big industry!
-Sugar Tax
-Inheritance Tax
-Wealth Tax
-Financial Transactions Tax
-New top tax rate on people earning over $300 000 per year.
-Capital Gains Tax
-Windfall profit taxes
-First $10 000 tax free
The Reserve Bank Governor is clearly telling us to raise taxes to pay for the rebuild, if Chippy’s Bread and Butter politics is to mean anything, he has to tax the rich to pay for the rebuild.
What’s the point of Bread and Butter politics if no one can afford to buy the Bread or the Butter?
Capitalism is rigged, Democracy is supposed to have the moral authority to challenge that.
We need to be kinder to individuals and crueller to corporations.
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Imagine if all you asked was that the gains previously won by the labour movement were restored — nothing new.
In other words, reversing all the attacks on working people. Simply demanding a return to what already existed in 1940 (or 1980!). Let me remind you again what it would take, merely to bring that back:
EMPLOYMENT — Restoration of the full employment policy (zero non-frictional unemployment), all Industrial Awards (restoring all penalty rates & maximum hours), the basic wage, universal trade union membership, the state labour exchanges and the Public Works Department.
INDUSTRY — Restoration of tariffs, import substitution, the import licensing system, and industrial planning. Reopening of all offshored factories, resuming local production of most finished goods.
RESOURCES — Restoration of the State Mines, State Refinery, state gasworks and fields (Petroleum Corporation), Electricity Department, state steelworks (NZS), Synthetic Petroleum Corporation, State Forest Service lumber, cotton production scheme.
CIVIL RIGHTS — Restoration of the Amended Webb Act (I.C.A. Act), overturning the ban on secondary and political strikes.
CURRENCY — The NZD. returned to fixed rate, gold-backed, fully-convertible currency. Restoration of gold and silver coinage.
BANKING — Re-nationalisation of the Bank of New Zealand (N.A.B), Rural Bank (A.N.Z. Rural), Development Finance Co. (Citibank), State Insurance Co. (I.A.G. Sydney), & Life Insurance Department (Tower Ins. Co.). Most other bank accounts transferred back to the control of the Post Office or (member-owned) provincial trustee savings banks (i.e. part-nationalisation of Westpac, A.N.Z. & Commonwealth Bank).
TRANSPORTATION — Restoration of all tramway services (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, New Plymouth, Napier, Gisborne, Wanganui, Invercargill). Restoration of all long-haul passenger rail lines (interprovincial and regional), suburban rail lines (Christchurch, Dunedin), & trolleybus lines (Auckland, New Plymouth, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin).
Restoration of the state shipping corporation (N.Z.S.C.). Nationalisation of N.Z.R. Road Services long-haul coachlines (InterCity Co.).
HOUSING — Return to previous per-capita level of state houses (24,100 new homes). 5,000 new state houses per annum thereafter (past peak). Restore slum clearance, desegregation and rent controls.
HEALTH — Restoration of free prescription medicine, free general practice visits. The (many) closed hospitals reopened. Restoration of hospital board elections.
EDUCATION — Restoration of free tertiary education. Reopen all closed schools. Restoration of the School Milk Act.
AGRICULTURE — Restoration of state subsidies and guaranteed gate price for farmers. Restoration of single-desk export boards and domestic price controls.
COMMUNICATIONS — Nationalisation of all telecommunications, returning control to the Post Office.
BROADCASTING — Nationalisation of the broadcasters, returning control to the N.Z.B.C. Reopen all local stations, and resume commercial-free service.
That is an awful lot of labour movement victories (and basic modern services) that have since been destroyed.
So you want a return to the real life Glide Time with a country ruled by public servants and committees that call for reports which are then not followed and then an enquiry into the inaction and a further report on how to fix the problem . By the time the last report is out it is time for another election and any action will go on hold for the next government to solve.
We’re still in a country ruled by Civil Servants.
The Glide Time myth was designed to make us think things had changed, but while we plebs are arguing about different topics these days their power still goes unnoticed just like it always did.
Sounds a lot like the last 5 years
Well, at least the Ghost of Robert Muldoon would be happy.
Problem you have going back to the 1950 is that under New Zealand membership of the WTO (joined in 1995) much of what you propose in regards currency, trade, industry, etc. would bring instant condemnation from WTO members as “protected” trading.
Sure we can stop importation of finished goods (cars and TV, etc.) but in response those exporting countries would boycott New Zealand farm produce, raw materials, etc.
Cant have one without the other in a world market.
Back in those days we had a single UK market for goods and in return assembled their useless cars and TV.s (at great expense). That has long gone.
There is no going back though some points are worth considering but nationalisation is not feasable (you simply dont have the money for repatriation those assets (unless you want to do a Valenzuela or Russia).
Lets not go back to know failures such as export boards and fixed gate prices. Breeds complacency and waste.
@Gerrit:
TRADE — Trade with other countries would remain. What would change is the export profile would be transformed into primarily high value-added, complex goods (advancing from the dependency on agrarian primary industries).
I think the W.T.O. issue will resolve itself regardless. Both the U.S. and Russia are openly returning to a kind of protected trading, declaring that the immediate threat of World War makes protection of domestic industry a matter of national security. (The Pentagon complained that a World War was unwinnable with so many goods supplied by non-allies.)
Nobody is able to blockade China, the U.S. and Russia all at the same time — and right now, all are going along with protectionism out of military necessity.
STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES — The Government wouldn’t necessarily need to buy out the large companies. They already run operations in many of those industries — the other companies would instead be subject to limitations from the old regulations.
In the other cases, the original operations were set up from scratch when the country was much smaller, bringing in less money, and the technology was inferior.
AGRICULTURE — The export boards could act much like Fonterra already does. However, small farmers would be protected by the large futures trading desk of the board.
It is rather obvious really, Rich fuckers supporting other Rich fuckers–and the aspirational not so rich fuckers–that follow ACT who wish they could!
Nope, check out KB, a more full breakdown of stats there : donations of all sizes pouring in for the right, the “left” is attracting tumbleweeds.
Labour lack survival responses – should have insisted on limited advertising for all and donations scrutinised to avoid heights of flummery. But seems that those new bright halogen? headlights have them trapped witless on the road. And at the end they won’t even have a halo!
There’s tonnes of money out there after all?!
Remove Tax from Bread and Butter like Hipkins said he would.
Tax the rich!
It is obvious that those with wealth want a government in power with strong law and order policies where criminals are locked up and youth offenders are placed in a facility that can turn them into functioning citizens. I see none of this in our current government.
Here in Chch we have a 13 year old detainew last week released back to his family and then yesterday stole a car drove to Nelson ram raided a petrol station ,stole another car drove back to Chch and smashed into a taxi . This one incident has effected many lives with no concequences to the youth or his usless family. This is repeated on a daily basis an people are scared and angry and want a party in power that will try to stop it .
The 13-year-old & his parents would have spent more of their life under National-led governments so why are you not willing to accept that their time in power has never solved any social problems? Doing the same old thing but expecting a different result is not the wisest idea.
National actually reduced police budgets from memory
Come on Trevor. They are forking out for tax cuts, real estate and the ability to completely roger the environment. It’s got nothing to do with law and order.
That’s hilarious Trevor. You know the money is not about law and order. It’s about tax cuts, being free to pollute, and tax free capital gains. Full stop
Those with wealth want a government in power to make them wealthier. They have no social morals.
All that money and the emboldened racist arseholes going even crazier about divisions in our society. And how Jacinda Ardern divided us.
The big story in this is how donations to Labour have dried up. Not even their own caucus members are donating to them. The Greens have had more donors over $1,500 than Labour.
Comparable years for Labour in Government are 2019 and 2007. Their level of disclosable donations in those years was:
2019: $780k
2007: $1,270k
I think this reflects a high degree of hostility to the Government not seen before.
Andrew. I am hostile to the government for (a) the gender ID scenarios prematurely sexualising school children and causing them God knows what damage at the hands of an irresponsible inept ignorant Education Dept captured by yet another USA-generated money-harvesting ideology
(b) the abolition of the Commissioner for Children
(c) child homelessness
(d) the deliberate dumbing down of the school system and the prostitution of the tertiary sector
(e) a PM who says, “ Unless you hear it from us it is not the truth”
(f) an immigration minister who says that a visiting overseas speaker has “ an incorrect world view”, possibly even more chilling than (e)
(g) the doctors and nurses denied entry to this country while disc jockeys were deemed essential workers
(h) the sicknesses of the health system
(i) the lies told about the occurrence at Albert Park 25/3/ 23
(j) the bungling of the Parliamentary precinct protests and zilch accountability thereof
(k) the costs of keeping warm and buying a cabbage
You forgot Chris Trotter!
So, the rich are upset well fuck them, it is not all about them they have benefitted hugely from the current governments policies and also the past ones. The fact they have donated so much money to influence who becomes the next government should incentivize the poor and not so poor to get of their bums and vote.
There was nothing brave about what happened in Albert Park. It was extreme cowards picking on older and diminutive women.
If they wanted a fight why didn’t the cowards pick on Tamati and his mates ( I am not suggesting that they should
Well I think we know the answer to that (and I wouldn’t possibly comment on the rights or wrongs of any potential reaction from Tamaki and his mates).
So much for rich iwi taking over the country…
We need to get rid of donations for election purposes it creates an unfair playing field. And I see National have splashed some cash with a big billboard of Chris Bishop saying, he is working hard for the Hutt. What I can say he is working hard telling porkies he makes shit up and believes his own lies we could call him Pinocchio.
The donations do seem to be pointing to disaffection with Labour which is curious considering their polling still has them as a real chance with coalition partners.
Is Labours actual polling worse than we think – why are they pulling risky underhand stunts like synchronized waka jimping unless their polling has them truly scared?
The $5m raised by the Nats is only around 10% of the amount the government has paid to bribe the media.
What a load of rubbish
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