Who buys the election – follow the money

A site called followthemoney.nz is worth looking at. It is beta site that tracks since 2019, the visible money directed at political parties. It includes declared donations, the broadcasting allocations, some details on the donations over and under 15k and a interesting list of declared donors in 2026 up to the end of September.

SFO to Investigate Labour Donations

The Serious Fraud Office has commenced an investigation in relation to donations made in 2017 to the Labour Party.

UPDATE: The investigation may involve donations made at a ‘silent’ art auction, something that Labour was upfront about back in February.

No smoking gun but plenty of sunlight from Bridges tape

Maybe not a smoking gun, Jami-Lee Ross’s tape recording of Simon Bridges sheds plenty of sunlight on the influence that money can buy within the National Party, casual racism endemic within National, the manipulation of ethnic communities and, most importantly, insights into the wielding of “soft power” by China.

A generous donation to Labour

Thank you Robert Smellie QC, I’m sure your donation will be put to great use. Smellie said: “I am a practising Anglican and as such I see socialism as being far closer to the Gospel than free enterprise.”

Trying to spin the Hagaman donation

Little is doing his job. Dirty Politics Farrar is spinning like mad. The real questions are – who knew about the donations, when did they know, and were they involved in awarding the contract?

Is the $15,000 even true?

John Key’s alleging that hundreds of thousands flowed to Labour from Donghua Liu, but as the Nat’s smear campaign unravels, even the $15,000 can’t be found. Who do we trust – an unnamed ‘party source’ in the Herald, or Party records? $15,000 is a sizeable donation that is likely to be noted or remembered. And where’s Donghua himself in all this – surely he could clear this up very quickly…

Emails reveal Key & Banks’ Dotcom links

John Key might be regretting his moan about the media yesterday. His reward has been to be shown to be lying in the banks.com affair. Key has previously claimed he first heard of Dotcom the day before he was arrested. A new email, however, shows Dotcom’s staff met with Key personally months earlier over his attempt to purchase the Crisco mansion.

Better write those cheques, Len & John

Update: Labour had accused Banks of not declaring the $15,000 donation from SkyCity as required under local government electoral law. The law is strict. If he is charged and convicted he’ll be kicked out of Parliament. Key will have to take his portfolios if Banks didn’t declare the money.

Private sector can’t compete with ACC

Government documents from last year reveal a plan to make ACC boost its levies and pay the government a dividend so that private insurers can compete. But that wasn’t enough. Now, the plan seems to be to exclude ACC from workplace injury insurance altogether. Private insurers just can’t offer cover as cheap as ACC can. So that Nats’ solution is to deny us access to ACC workplace cover.

Nats’ Crafar Farm kickback

On November 30th, after the election, National received a $55,000 donation from Oravida, a company formerly owned by Terry Lee, director of Pengxin’s Crafar Farms vehicle, Milk New Zealand. In light of National’s illegal decision to let Pengxin buy the farms despite a lack of real benefits to New Zealand, maybe we ought to examine that donation a little  more closely.

Cash for cars?

A $50,000 donation from a BMW franchise to National?

This latest twist to the BMW saga has a real stench about it.

A few questions

1) Did the PM declare his conflict of interest when the alcohol reforms were debated at Cabinet?
2) Aren’t these exactly the reforms you would expect from a guy who owns a high end winery? No extra excise. No controls on advertising. Demonise the kids.
3) Has National or any of its MPs recieved donations from alcohol sellers? Like Tony Astle, for example?

Same old faces, same old tactics

Well it looks like Free Speech Coalition founder Cameron Slater has taken a break from stalking John Minto and photoshopping underage bloggers’ faces […]