Dail Jones was right

The last pieces of the New Zealand First funding mystery were solved today, as the Herald reveals that the “close to $100,000 than $10,000” mystery amount referred to by Dail Jones in December 2007 was a $80,000 donation from the Spencer .

No wonder Peters was furious with Jones. He had accidentially revealed the existence of the . As Party President Jones wasn't even aware of the Trust – it was all Peters.

And what did Peters say at the time:

Asked if that meant “there was no big anonymous donation”, Mr Peters said “precisely”.

$80,000 is not big of course.

And in that infamous press conference:

“We have a treasurer in the party and he says it's a consolidation of amounts around the party. He should know. One can get confused when you look at documentation and perhaps he [Mr Jones] should have spoken to the treasurer.”

Now this is fascinating. Peters refers to ti being a consolidation of amounts “around the party”. This is implying that the Spencer Trust is part of the party.

Where the $158,000 came from to “repay” 's unlawful spend at the last election:
“We've had at $10, and $20, and $50 for a long, long time because some people used to think – and it's an attitude that still permeates New Zealand as a – that one day the communists might take over and they will be all in the firing line.”

Yep all those small donations of $10, $20, $50 and oh yeah $10,000 and $25,000.

Incidentally we still don't know where the $158,000 that should have been paid to the taxpayer went.

Now there is an interesting scenario. the $80,000 was made up of seperate donations each under $10,00.01? Would that have to be disclosed?

Unless the Spencer Trust is literally part of NZ First – as in an additional suffix to their main bank account – I believe the answer is yes. And it seems its money was kept in a solictor's trust fund so the answer is they are separate. The donation is from the Spencer Trust or even the solictor's trust fund, and was $80,000 so should have been declared.

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