I’ve had a gutsful of this nonsense going on with political parties and their donations. We should be demanding better standards.
With the news late last week, we now know the Serious Fraud Office is looking into donations affiliated with no less than three of our biggest parties.
National: charges already laid against Jami-Lee Ross and three others. New Zealand First: investigation underway. Now Labour: two Labour-affiliated mayors, both former Labour MPs, referred to the SFO, both collected donations at auctions.
In all three cases, it’s same alleged problem. Alleged attempts to hide the donor’s name, whether it’s by allegedly splitting the donation up into bits so small they don’t have to be declared. Or by allegedly funnelling the donations into a separate entity’s bank account. Or by allegedly selling things like wine at auction for way more than it’s worth so it’s a ‘purchase’ not a ‘donation’.
All of it, as I said, allegedly centring on attempts to keep donors’ names secret.
So you know what we need to do? Change the rules - no more anonymity.
At least, no more anonymity for big donations. Donations under, let’s say, $1000, fair enough. Your name can be secret, because you’re not donating enough to influence a party or a candidate.
Above that, and your name’s out there.
What’s the problem? Unions do it. Unions are named as donors to the labour and green parties, and so we know when Labour writes laws like the controversial Fair Pay Agreements legislation, they’re probably doing it because the unions want them to.
We might not like it, but at least we know it. That’s how it should be.
Instead, what’s going on is that we’re guessing, aren’t we? We know this system is open to being worked around but we don’t know who. We’re left wondering who’s donating what to who and what they might be getting in return.
Now, I need to make it clear, I’m not suggesting any influence by the donors in the examples I’ve given. But what I am saying is that this is now a system that is hard to trust, and it shouldn’t be. We should have full confidence in it.
Now, of course, which politician is going to change the rules?  Which politician is going to deliberately scare off potential donors? It’s like a turkey voting for an early Christmas.
But I challenge them anyway. Man up, change the rules, drop the anonymity to a negligible level, and if you do that, maybe the rest of us can start believing the things you all say.
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