TVNZ has a major scoop - Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon donated over $10,000 to Kiri Allen's campaign in the 2020 election. Weirdly, they try and make this about Allen and Foon's future reappointment - but the actual problem is Foon. As Race Relations Commissioner, he's effectively a public servant. While I am not sure what standards applied in 2020, the current Code of Conduct For Crown Entity Board Members requires him to be politically impartial:
We act in a politically impartial manner. Irrespective of our political interests, we conduct ourselves in a way that enables us to act effectively under current and future governments... When acting in our private capacity, we avoid any political activity that could jeopardise our ability to perform our role or which could erode the public’s trust in the entity.Significant donations to a political candidate clearly violate this. To see that, you just need to ask whether a future National government would be comfortable having a significant Labour donor on a crown entity (or whether Labour would be comfortable having a significnat National one). No? Then Foon needs to resign, to protect the integrity of the public service. It's that simple.
