National and ACT are streets ahead of rivals when it comes to attracting large political donations this election year, with both surpassing the $2 million mark.
As of Thursday, National had received over $2.7 million in large declarable donations while ACT had been given over $2.3 million, according to the Electoral Commission.
In terms of donations exceeding $20,000, Graeme Hart's Rank Group was National's largest donor giving $250,000 on two occasions. Rank Group has also given $200,000 to ACT.
Zuru's Nick Mowbray was ACT's largest donor, donating three times to a total of $225,000. Mowbray has also donated $250,000 to National.
Labour's largest donor was the estate of Murray George Jones, with the party receiving $219,178.08. Jones was a mountaineer and according to Newsroom, a lifelong union man, orchardist and Bannockburn resident. Jones had also donated $1.37 million to fund respiratory medicine research at the University of Otago.
Robert Morgan had donated twice to the Greens, with the party receiving a total of $109,000. Morgan is a private investor and entrepreneur. Meanwhile NZ First's largest donor at $150,000 was Peter Vela, a businessman and thoroughbred horse breeder and owner.
As for Opportunity, the party's biggest donor was its board member Alan Wilderland, the co-founder of a music software company called Serato Audio Research, providing $180,000 through three donations.
These figures come from organisations and people who have made party donations exceeding $20,000. By law, political parties must tell the Electoral Commission within 20 working days when they get more than $20,000 from a single donor between January 1 of election year and the day before election day.
Political parties can also receive donations protected from disclosure. This means people can donate more than $1500 to a party anonymously by sending the money to the Electoral Commission. The Commission sends the money to political parties without identifying the donor or other details about the donation.
'The wealthy believe political influence is worth paying for'
These latest donation figures have led Greens co-leader Marama Davidson to renew her party's call to cap political donations as a way of "getting big money and influence out of politics".
“Government is supposed to work for New Zealanders, not lobbyists and the super rich. It’s clear who the super rich are backing, and which party represents their interests," Davidson said.
"Though this is just pocket change to the super rich, they wouldn’t donate millions if it didn’t deliver something in return."
Opportunity also wants to cap political donations.
How it all started
The first hefty donation this year came from Pure Advantage founder Phillip Mills, of Les Mills gyms. In January, he donated $50,000 to the Opportunity Party. Since then, he’s donated $90,000 to the Greens, a further $50,000 to Opportunity and $100,000 to Labour.
He previously told interest.co.nz that he was supporting parties who were “properly dealing with the issues that need to be dealt with around climate change”.
Mills has donated before, giving $50,000 to both the Greens and Labour in 2023.
Over 1.4 million early votes cast so far
As of Wednesday, Electoral Commission data shows that 1,440,840 early votes have been cast. This compares with 2023's 1,174,644 figure and 2020's 1,565,056 figure on this equivalent date.
October 31 saw the highest number of early votes lodged so far, at 192,604. This was followed by November 4, which saw 189,822 advance votes cast.
The Electoral Commission has also referred people to police. One person was referred to police after they claimed to have voted multiple times. The Electoral Commission said it is an offence under section 215 of the Electoral Act 1993 to vote more than once.
Three people were referred to the police for “apparent breaches of section 197A of the Electoral Act 1993 which deals with activity near voting places”.
“Individuals are prohibited from campaigning or displaying party names and logos while inside an advance voting place or within 10 metres of its entrance while the advance voting place is open for voting,” the Commission said.
As these matters were now with the Police, the Commission would not be commenting further.
Enquiries ongoing into Split Your Vote website
Last week, Detective Senior Sergeant Andrew Compton confirmed that police had received a referral from the Electoral Commission in relation to businessman Harry Mowbray’s Split Your Vote website.
Mowbray had been pushing the message that a centre-right government could be "best achieved" if people gave their electorate vote to National and their party vote to ACT or NZ First.
Last week, National confirmed to RNZ that it had referred Mowbray’s website to the Electoral Commission, with a National spokesperson saying: “This particular campaign did not comply with the election rules everyone has to operate under. We referred it to the Electoral Commission, but we doubt we were the only ones.”
Compton said enquiries were being undertaken and there was no further comment police could provide at this stage.
National leader Christopher Luxon told media in Blenheim last week that he would not comment on this given there was a police investigation underway.
“New Zealanders have chosen the MMP system … That is the system that they give us and that is the system we operate within … It’s as simple as, if you want to have National policies, National ministers, you want to have a National-led government, party vote National,” he said.
No campaigning or advertising on Election Day
On Saturday, election day, no campaigning or advertising is allowed while voting takes place.
That means election signs will need to be taken down before Election Day and the Electoral Commission said people should take care with social media posts and sharing content.
“You can’t post who you voted for or post or share anything else that could influence voters.”
Advance voting began on October 26 and will end on November 6. People can also vote on election day, which is November 7, from 9am to 7pm.
Preliminary election results will be released progressively on November 7 from 7pm here.
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