Back in May, we learned that National MP David MacLeod had "forgotten" to declare $178,000 in electoral donations. Filing a donation return which is false in any material particular is a crime, and the Electoral Commission has now referred MacLeod to police, since they're the only people who are allowed to prosecute.
...and now, as expected, the police have ended the investigation and declared that they will take no further action. This is effectively a strict liability offence - while MacLeod may not have had any intention to mislead, he also clearly did not take all reasonable steps to ensure his declaration was accurate - so the police are once again deciding to ignore the law to protect the powerful.
Our democracy deserves better than this. Electoral finance law is a key protection against political corruption, and it needs to be properly enforced. Since the police clearly will not do it, we need to give the job to someone who will: the Electoral Commission.
