GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – Democracy For Sale Part 1 Should We Cap Donations
While it is often difficult to convince the few who have great wealth to share some it with the many who are struggling to make ends meet, the latest release by the Electoral Commission detailing Party Donations reveals the rich are less reticent when it comes to spending some of their cash to protect their incomes.
Over the last couple of days have been working through the declared donations and expenses of the political parties who managed to get candidates elected and there is so much to be gleaned from the available data that I will be offering my analysis over two consecutive posts.
Today’s post,Part1, I look at some donation trends.In Part 2 I will try to trace how and where that donated money was spent before raising my concerns about the influence of Big Money on our democracy.
Part 1: Donations
According to the official returns available on the Electoral Commission’s site the donation amounts (to the nearest rounded dollar amount) pulled in by each party to fight the 2023 Election were:
National $10,383,230
ACT $4,262,712
NZ First $1,877,416
Which means the three parties forming the Coalition of the Political Right collectively had an election war chest of $16,523,358.
The total donations for the three parties on the Political Left gave them a war chest of roughly half that amount at $8,244,795.
The Green Party $3,314,650
Labour $ 4,769,395,
Te Pati Maori $160,749
Who Pays Wins then, is clearly becoming a major factor in deciding New Zealand elections.
If we then ask the Cui Bono? Or Who Benefits? analytical question, the patterns becomse apparent as you read through the various lists of donors.
National’s donors are by and large very wealthy individuals.
Their largest donation last election of $500,000 came from Warren Lewis, managing Director of Fairview Metal Industries.
But it is the donation strategy of Graeme Hart,New Zealand’s richest man, that I find most interesting.
Both Hart and The Rank Group Ltd ,of which he is the sole shareholder, donated the following amounts to the following parties on the Right.
National
Rank Group Ltd $150,000
Graeme Hart $100,000
ACT
Graeme Hart $100,000
Rank Group Ltd $104,000
NZ FIRST
Rank Group Ltd $110,000
In total: $564,000
So Lewis and Hart , between them, delivered $1,064,000 in cash to help the current Coalition get into power moreover looking down the donors lists of these three parties the money tends to come from wealthy individuals.
In sharp contract the donations for parties on the Left tend to come from organisations representing groups of people such as Unions.Left Invidiual donors offer smaller amounts than National and ACT donors and many Green and Labour MPs also donate to their Parties -a practice that does not so seem as common among National,Act and NZ First MPs.
Whilst being able to access how much money was donated by whom and to which party from the Electoral Commissions site is healthy for our democracy, clearly the leeway available to wealthy individuals to influence the outcome of an election is not.
In Part 2 I will be looking at what the amount of money the Parties spent on their campaigns reveals about the financing of political parties as well as addressing the whole issue that money in politics raises for our democracy.
Bryan Bruce is one of New Zealand’s most important and respected documentary makers. His work is available on bryanbruce.substack.com
Should We Cap Donations?
No. We should do away with them altogether.
All campaign funding on the public purse. Anything else should be treated as corruption and prosecuted.
Labour and the Greens could have fixed this. But didn’t.
Elections should be a battle of ideals and ideas, not dollars.
Why do you say Labour and greens should have sorted this. As with anything they did it would have been on the 100 day hit list.
To get it enshrined for ever you need a 75% vote in favour and that will never happen.
Because they pretend to have a mortgage on moral purity. In reality they are exactly the same as National, ACT and NZ First.
Allowing any money to influence politics is a very slippery slope.
It would be interesting after finding if all the money was not actually spent during the campaign where it actually went.
It would also be fun to know how much each vote cost each party. Perhaps someone with good information and maths skills better than mine could work that out.
I wonder does the Act donation amount include the donated jet costs or who paid for the costs of the entourage’s of civil servants following these guys from all parties around.
Nationals donations were spent on another Paula Bennett tummy tuck.
Well Mr Lewis will be gutted as the money he handed out has led to the shut down of the construction industry .No ali windows being sold at the moment so he will be quietly laying of staff and not saying any thing as the egg runs down his face .He would have been creaming it for 5 of the last five years with record house builds .No the trade has no confidence in the government he has bought .I know a major roofer in Hamilton who says he always makes money when Labour is in power but because of tribalisim votes national because thats what business does for no real logical reason .
There is so much gold to dig into here.
“Green and Labour MPs also donate to their Parties a practice that does not seem as common among National, Act and NZ First MPs.” Is this because Green and Labour MPs believe in capitalism and are happy to invest in advertising budgets to secure a sale (get elected). While entitled National and ACT candidates always feel others should pay for their lifestyles.
Is there a ready market for what the right is selling but the left’s customers don’t believe the promises on the packaging and don’t open their wallets.
It would be great to see a chart of the individual donations and the law changes and regulatory benefits achieved for the donation money plus actual $ tax savings.
this is an issue for so-called capitalist democracies around the globe- certainly evident in US politicss
This is a comment that just comes to mind without close scrutiny of all the details in the post. But maybe some light relief before the heavy going of confronting the effect of such uneven contributions. What comes to mind – if Labour had any substance and guts, they would have recognised this imbalance, and the insane spending on electioneering and brought in a Bill that would limit what could be spent by all Parties. It would have given us a more even playing field even if we still didn’t score winning goals.
Why do you think Labour should have sorted this. As with most things they did it would have been on the 100 day hit list anyway.
Someone did an experiment in the US where they “invested” only in companies that donated heavily to political parties. Their portfolio did very, very well indeed. But this isn’t the only problem in the US – and let’s remember that when they sneeze we tend to catch a cold. This is pretty powerful stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Wld5BDKKc
Film 1985 Brewsters Millions – runs for office on ;Vote for None of the Above’. Makes you think, or not. Richard Pryor who starred in it died in 2001 I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIK5WFgH5G8
Luxon went overseas and said nz is open for business but really we are up for sale.