As a result of Mr Crimp's money, Mr Banks is now a minister in the Government, and National has agreed to Act's demand to set up state-funded charter schools. The Government has also agreed to a long-standing Act wish that government spending be capped to the rate of population growth and inflation.
On Saturday, Act president Chris Simmons was reported as disagreeing with Mr Crimp's anti-Maori nonsense, but was happy to take more of his money if it was offered. Whether Mr Crimp's Monday night talk of knee-tremblers against a tree has caused Act to think again about accepting his money, is yet to be ascertained.
But it does highlight once more whether political parties in a small democracy like ours should be beholden to the generosity of millionaires, some at least of whom are, to be kind, eccentric in their views, and all of whom - being human - expect some sort of return for their investment.
Mr Crimp is just the latest in a long line. He handed over his money after Don Brash seized control of Act last year, hoping the party would push the views on Maori espoused by Dr Brash in his controversial 2004 Orewa speech as National Party leader.
Before the courts now is millionaire businessman Yong Ming Yan aka Yang Liu, aka William Yan, who has contributed to both major party election chests.
This is chicken feed compared to the $500,000 the homesick, ex-Mt Roskill boy, international freight forwarding mogul Owen Glenn dished out to Labour for the 2005 election, and the $100,000 he gave to fund Winston Peters' legal battles soon after.
But even these sums pale into insignificance alongside the $2 million merchant banker Michael Fay is said to have poured into Labour Party coffers in gratitude for the Rogernomic reforms of the mid-1980s.
Nicky Hager's book, The Hollow Men, underlines how the parties of the right tend to be the big winners. Fishing industry heavyweights Peter and Michael Talley, Alan Gibbs, Craig Heatley, David Richwhite, Doug Myers and Peter Shirtcliffe have all been generous. Mr Shirtcliffe also bankrolled the anti-MMP campaigns.
American hedge fund millionaire Julian Robertson refused to confirm or deny Mr Hager's claims he helped fund National. On the other hand, Mr Dotcom has gone out of his way to point out his large contribution to Mr Banks' failed Auckland mayoral campaign, and also his great displeasure that when his mate became an MP and Act leader, he didn't come to his rescue when he found himself inside Mt Eden Prison in great discomfort.
And let's not forget the secret $1 million pro-National Party campaign funded by the Exclusive Brethren sect.
In recent years, legislation has forced parties to reveal who their bigger donors are. But there are still back doors built into the system, designed by politicians, that allow for "anonymous" donations.
To me, the idea that big donors will hand over money without a nudge and a wink to the recipient, stretches credulity. As does the thought that a politician won't be checking up through the party system or however whether such and such person has handed over the promised cheque.
The 1986 Royal Commission into the electoral system, having tried in vain to get to the bottom of the sources of party funding in the 1984 general election, declared in favour of state funding for political parties.
In those days, both the big two parties had much larger membership bases than they do today. Even so, the commissioners reflected that "the extent to which ordinary party members and supporters can meet the sophisticated and costly requirements of parties in a modern democracy ... is severely limited. Our parties should be able to operate not just as electoral machines, but also vehicles through which ideas may be discussed and sound policies developed".
They said, "Political parties are too important to be left to starve" and warned "too great a reliance" on outside funders like trade unions and corporation would be "detrimental to our democracy and might ... lead to corruption of our political process ..." A quarter century on, their message sounds just as pertinent, and urgent.
