Bryan Bruce – Democracy For Sale Part 2 – Where did the money go?

Yesterday I listed the donations made to political parties who succeeded in getting candidates elected to parliament in 2023 and asked whether the underlying principle of Who Pays Wins is undermining our democracy?

In today’s post I look at how much the various parties say they spent fighting the last election and what they spent it on.

Part 2: Where did the money go?

The first thing that struck me after I lined up the 2023 Parties Declared Donations with the Declared Expenses available on the Electoral Commission’s site, was the quite large amounts of money that have disappeared from the public gaze.

Here’s a brief summary. (NB. Amounts rounded to the nearest dollar)

National

Donations $10,383,230

Expenses    $ 2,555,655

Difference: $7827575

Unaccounted 75%

ACT

Donations $4,262 ,712

Expenses:  $2,776,458

Difference: $1,486354

Unaccounted 34%

NZ First

Donations  $1,877,416

Expenses    $99,274

Difference: $1,778,142

Unaccounted 89%

Green Party

Donations $3,314,650

Expenses   $1,336,920

Difference  $1,777,730

Unaccounted 56%

 Labour

Donations $ 4,769,395

Expenses: $ 3,511,056

Difference  $1,258,339

Unaccounted 26%

Te Pati Maori

Donations $160,749

Expenses $98,781

Difference  $61,968

Unaccounted 39%

So at first blush all of the Parties took in more money than they spent.

The largest apparent surplus being the National Party’s $7,827,575 and the smallest Te Pati Maori Party’s $98,781. However when the unaccounted difference between money in to money out is calculated as a percentage then Labour seems to spend a greater proportion of its donations on fighting the election and NZFIRST spends the least of its donated money during the election period.

When donation amounts to audited election expenses are calculated as a percentage of money in to money out the results are as follows:

25% of money donated to National appears as election expenses (75 % does not).

34% of money donated to ACT appears as election expenses (66 % does not).

11% of money donated to NZ FIRST appears as election expenses (89 % does not).

44% of money donated to THE GREEN PARTY appears as election expenses

(56 %  does not).

74% of money donated to LABOUR appears as election expenses (26 % does not).

61% of money donated to ACT appears as election expenses (39% does not).

So why is there apparently so much the missing money?

It may very well be that the differences are all explained by legitimate expenditures not directly related to the precise dates of the election period. However it seems to me that in the interests of transparency and fair democratic elections that the Parties should be required to publish a full set of accounts that detail what happened to all money they brought in by donations.

Conclusion:

We need to put a cap on the total amount that can be donated to any Political Party between elections because Who Pays Wins will always favour the election of Right Wing governments who are able to tap very wealthy donors in order to maintain the status quo of low taxes and untaxed wealth accumulation opportunities.

Many countries cap donations in order to put a limit on how much you can give to any political party and thereby limit the influence wealthy individuals can exert on governments. We should do the same because the current situation is widening the gap between the rich and the poor in our country and that’s not healthy for our democracy or the well-being of our society.

Bryan Bruce is one of New Zealand’s most important and respected documentary makers. His work is available on bryanbruce.substack.com