Mike Williams: The issue of fundraising

Mike Williams.

Political fundraising has returned as an issue as a result of journalists scrutinising expense returns from the general election.

There are hundreds of pages involved in this kind of sleuthing but only three not-very-suspicious cases were uncovered.

The Green Party accepted a large donation, which it did not return, from a woman who was later accused of neglecting animals.

My MP, Phil Twyford, received a donation of $2000 from Ahmed Bhamji and returned it when shown that Mr Bhamji had claimed the mosque attacks were a Jewish conspiracy.

Napier MP, Stuart Nash, was named as he had listed forestry companies as donors and is now Minister for Forests.

It eluded whoever broke the story that Nash was not Minister of Forests when the donations were made, nor could he have any idea of his responsibilities post-election as allocation of portfolios in the Labour Party is done by the leader.

As party president, I encouraged MPs and candidates to do exactly what Nash did and approach businesses for support.

I considered the Labour Party needed to maintain good contacts with the business community, and meetings with a chance of a campaign contribution killed two birds with one stone.

National Party candidates have a practice, apparently legal under the present law, that disguises the source of their campaign money.

Although each National MP or candidate has a fundraising target set by the National Party head office, all donations are channelled through the same head office, so when you check a candidate's campaign donation report all you see is a single donation from the National Party.

If you access the Elections NZ website, you will find that National's Napier candidate, Katie Nimon, supposedly collected just the one donation of $31,242.35, the source of which was the National Party.

Other donations to the New Zealand First, National and Labour parties are under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office and the NZ First case is proceeding to court.

Although the relevant law says donations in excess of $15,000 must be quickly declared to the Electoral Commission, there are ways around this, some of which will be tested in court.

The Prime Minister has indicated a review of electoral law is under consideration.

This should focus on the established methods of avoiding disclosing the source of donations.

If we want to avoid any hint of any kind of corruption arising from political fundraising, we need to reopen debate about extending state funding of political campaigns.

This is long established in the United States, Australia and most democracies in Europe, and is usually based on a payment per vote cast.

Australia brought this in 37 years ago and funding now stands at $2.63 per eligible vote.
The Liberal Party, the Australian sister to NZ's National Party, opposed the introduction of state funding but has not abolished it when it had several chances in government since.

• Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.