Bid to reveal names in NZ First Foundation case

WELLINGTON: At least two media organisations are going to court to try to reveal the identities of the two people charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in relation to the investigation into the New Zealand First Foundation and its handling of donations.

The SFO announced on Tuesday it had laid charges of obtaining by deception against the pair.

The defendants cannot be named due to an interim name suppression order, but the SFO has confirmed they are not sitting MPs, candidates or party members.

RNZ and Stuff intend to challenge the suppression.

‘‘RNZ believes voters should have as much information as possible heading into the election,’’ RNZ head of news Richard

Sutherland said yesterday.

NZ First took the SFO to the High Court last week seeking to suppress the names of the two people charged, but the court ruled against the party.

It said there was ‘‘a significant public interest in the New Zealand voting public being informed during an election campaign about criminal charges of serious fraud against people or organisations related to political parties’’.

However, the judge granted the party leave to appeal the decision, which gives the defendants continued interim name suppression.

Since all this was made public, NZ First leader Winston Peters has claimed the SFO is biased against his party, which he says is ‘‘totally separate’’ from the foundation.

However, the first court judgement noted the SFO had categorically denied its treatment of the foundation had been any different from its investigation into the Labour Party, and that the foundation ‘‘is a trust with associations with NZ First, according to NZ First’s counsel’’.

University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis said NZ First was in the clear ‘‘in the sense they haven’t been charged with any criminal activity’’.

‘‘Now of course if the bar for our politicians is ‘I am not a crook and I am not undergoing any criminal charges’, if that’s as much as we expect of them, then they have been exonerated.

‘‘But the reality is the New Zealand First party set up this foundation as a shadow way of gaining donations, of gaining the money to run the party, and now two of the people involved have been charged with criminal activity because it is clear to anyone who looked at this from the outset that what they were doing was in breach of electoral law and they have been caught.’’

Prof Geddis said Mr Peters was right there could be no speculation over who had been charged because there was name suppression.

‘‘But in terms of discussing the outline of the case, discussing the background facts and so on, those are all on public record.

‘‘Subjudice is something people throw around when they don’t want to talk about an issue — it doesn’t mean you can’t talk about anything to do with the case.’’

Prof Geddis said it seemed the SFO was saying the way the money was flowing into the NZ First Foundation breached the Crimes Act.

He said the foundation and how it was set up was ‘‘unprecedented’’.

‘‘This was a foundation where people would put money directly into the foundation rather than give it to the party.

‘‘Because it was being put into the foundation it was not being declared to the Electoral Commission as required and then the money was being spent on New Zealand First activities rather than the party spending its own money.

‘‘So it was like a shadow parallel funding structure that paid no attention to electoral law even though it ought to have.’’ — RNZ