Records show New Zealand First has disclosed three loans from the New Zealand First Foundation. In 2017, it received $73,000. Then in 2018, it received a separate loan of $76,622, in what the Electoral Commission says was a loan executed to "replace the first loan". In 2019, it received another loan for $44,923.
Those giving money to the foundation are able to remain anonymous because under electoral law, loans are not subject to the same disclosure requirements as donations.
Both of the foundation's trustees refused to answer any questions about what the foundation did and how it operated, and New Zealand First's party secretary, Liz Witehira, said she knew nothing about it.
"I don't know and I don't need to know," Mrs Witehira told RNZ.
The natural suspicion here is that they are simply laundering their donations. And of course, its all "within the rules". But when those rules were written by self-interested politicians for their own benefit, that doesn't fly very far with the public. Electoral law expert Andrew Geddis says that this isn't the level of transparency we expect to see from a political party, and he's right. As for how to stop it, we busted trusts on donations, requiring the true contributors to be identified; clearly we need to do this for non-commercial "loans" as well.
But that's just plugging the current loophole, and dodgy politicians wanting to hide their corrupt dealings will soon find (or create) another. So in the long-term, we need to insist on total transparency, with every non-trivial donation disclosable, while shifting to public funding to get the rich out of politics. The rich have their outsized influence because the parties need their money. Remove that need, and politicians might actually start working for voters for a change.