Thursday, March 20, 2014



Political parties are not charities

John Key is in trouble again, this time for claiming that his golf game with Oravida owner Stone Shi was the result of a donation to charity. Now it turns out that the "charity" was the National Party. Which is just a little deceitful. Since Key is obviously confused, here's some help:

A charity in New Zealand law is an organisation established to fulfil a "charitable purpose", such as "the relief of poverty, the advancement of education or religion, or any other matter beneficial to the community". A political party is a body established to fulfil a political purpose, such as advocating a particular political point of view, competing for and winning political office, or distributing jobs and government funding to its donors and cronies. A political purpose is not "charitable", and charities which engage in politics get deregistered.

And while we're at it: the National Party does not appear in the register of charities. it is an offence to misrepresent a body as a charity when it is not. Maybe Key should be a little more careful with his language?