Close funding loopholes
Labour MP David Parker didn’t get far when he asked John Key in Parliament about a private dinner at the Remuera home of property developer Longhua Liu and Liu’s $25,000 donation to National candidate Jami-Lee Ross. Parker tried to establish if Key knew Liu’s citizenship application was being processed at the time of the dinner (Key said he didn’t) and whether immigration issues were discussed that night. This was a fundraising dinner, Key replied, and he had gone there as leader of the National Party. Broader questions are raised by the official publication of individual candidate donation returns and by National Party explanations for its handling of donations. The explanations suggest National has exploited a loophole in electoral law which distinguishes between ‘‘candidate’’ donations (given to help elect a candidate in an electorate) and ‘‘party’’ donations. The law requires candidates to reveal the identities of donors who contribute $1500 or more to them but political parties can keep donors secret for contributions up to $15,000. This helps to explain why about $1 million of the $1.2m in reported donations to National candidates for the 2014 election came from the party rather than from identifiable individuals or outside organisations. Labour Party donations to candidates accounted for only 35 per cent of campaign income.
National’s Ross received $25,000 from ‘‘Roncon Pacific Hotel Management Holdings Ltd’’ (or Liu) on August 15, 2013, and $24,296.21 from the National Party on September 19, 2014. Ross acknowledged the Liu donation was given for his Botany campaign but was not spent because the party donation covered his expenses. It was returned ‘‘because it was not used’’. Otago University law professor Andrew Geddis says: ‘‘it looks to me like National is playing fast and loose with the rules here’’. Some sorts of donations are being treated in one way when it suits party officials and in another way when this suits them better. He wants the Electoral Commission to establish whether everything was above board. Geddis suggests the commission checks what happened against the separate statutory sections covering the returns of individual donations and party donations. Parliament has a job to do too. It must review any loopholes and legislate to close them.