Third Party expenditure in 2008
The Electoral Commission has published the details of spending by registered third parties in 2009. From largest to smallest they are:
- CTU $104,110
- PSA $71,304
- Free Speech Coalition $29,491
- Dairy Workers Union $16,740
- NZ Meat Workers Union $8,571
- EPMU $5,690
- Maritime Union $3,282
- Vote for the Environment $1,296
- NUPE $1,285
- Health Cuts Hurt $293
So the total union was a bit over $200,000. And nine out of ten third parties that spent money were clearly left wing – in fact the FSC was the only expenditure from the right. So again when the left go on abour big money in politics, remember the left spent six times as much.
Some interesting details in the individual returns. The CTU spent $35,000 on 300,000 flyers (the real cost would have been all the paid union staff distributing them) and they spent just over $20,000 on their You Tube ads attacking Bill English and John Key. Also Labour approved $47,000 of their costs reminding us of how closely linked they are.
Seven unions donated money to the CTU for their campaign – the largest was the PPTA at $50,000.
Interesting the two unions that both spent over $30,000 had qualified audit reports in which they say they can not form an opinion as to whether the returns are correct. The EFA is such a bad confusing law, that the Auditors said they can not know if the law has been complied with. And this is no surprise – the Institute of Accountants warned of this before it was passed, and Labour and Greens ignored the advice.
The Dairy Workers Union appear to have misunderstood the donations return. It is meant to be for them to list what donations they received. Instead they have listed the donations they made – $10,000 to CTU, $12,000 to Labour and $3,000 to the Greens.
In May we will get to see the donations returns for the political parties.
March 18th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
The Dairy Workers Union is laughable. I know unions are leftist and pathetic. But when the Green Party advocates major cuts to dairying and would like to see less dairy farms. Why would you then give money to the Greens who in reality would take jobs away from the dairy industry.
March 18th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Interesting stuff. It’d be nice if someone would add to this list (or the downloadable Excel file from the Electoral Commission website) some sort of further detail on the political nature of how these third parties spent their money – i.e. was it spent in some sort of pro-party way, and what issue were they pushing?
Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz
March 18th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Who is NUPE?
Regarding the free speech coalition, did the billboards put up at the begining of last year, the ones comparing Clark to the fijian coup leader in Auckland, and Peters to the North korean dictator stay in place throughout the whole year.
[DPF: No]
March 18th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
NUPE is the National Union of Public Employees and is mainly based in Christchurch. It’s a breakaway from the PSA. In the late 1980s (or early 1990s?) some unionists in the PSA thought that it was too Labour Party aligned, too moderate, and not supportive enough of its members, so they broke away.
Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz
March 18th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Youtube ads cost $20k?
wtf?
March 18th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Add into that the amount of money spent by the EPMU on their inhouse / Labour Party Blog “the Standard” the amount of time those over paid oafs spent demonising John Key would have been very substantial. Should that money not also be included in their returns?
March 18th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Newsflash: Trade unions are a bit political! The dirty left, eh?
At least we KNOW to what extent “Big business” and “The Unions” dipped their oars in this time around.
And it seems that Labour’s EFA was effectively regulating far more of their own supporter’s dollars/actions than of their opponents’. Does this make Labour more evil, or less evil? Or is their evil unchanged by this information?
March 18th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
“And it seems that Labour’s EFA was effectively regulating far more of their own supporter’s dollars/actions than of their opponents’.”
Really? Surely it is possible that the EFA regulated more of Labours oppositions supporters to the point that they didnt engage in the political process.
We dont know. They dont show up in the stats. We can have a guess, given the level of expenditure in previous elections, at what extent democracy was discouraged. But that is about it.
All we see is that Labour supporters spent more than National supporters. I would say that the EFA performed exactly as Labour intended. Their own supporters spent more than the opposition’s.
March 18th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Its interesting to ask why Labour included this third party disclosure regime in the EFA if it would produce such an own goal for the Left.
Is it because there used to be large donations by right wingers but no more? Or did Labour’s conspiracy theorists get it wrong?
March 18th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
$20k for youtube ads!!!!
David will attest to the fact that the Two Helens ad was whipped up on the coffee table in a motel in Taupo in about two hours and the voice was recorded in Tauranga. The whole ad cost us nothing but time and pretty much stopped Labour’s Two Johns ad overnight.
Ditto the three Downfall videos I made.
Someone needs to be paying me $20k for all those.
Still I am quite proud of our ramshackle PR fiasco….our little $29k went a very long way in terms of smacking around the government.
March 18th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Yep that is right. Only cost was time.
March 18th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Speaking of the EPMU and The Standard, does anyone reckon that they’ll apologise to John Key for all their “John Key wants to cut your wages” smears last year?
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/03/admit-you-were-wrong-lads.html
March 18th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Ratbiter/Kimble: so the options are:
– Labour are incompetent, and their changes impacted their side way more than National, OR
– The EFA drove a whole lot of right wingers out of the debate, thereby advantaging Labour.
Hmmmmm. Hard to know which to pick. Either is plausible.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Thanks to the EFA Helen Clark took a nice big pay cut and is now spokesman for “who the hell cares”.
March 19th, 2009 at 7:44 am
I don’t see the Sensible Sentencing Trust there or the Asian Anti-Crime Group. What about John Boscown’s return? Or The EMA’s?
The only reason the bulk of the listed groups are left-wing is that left wing groups have complied with the law. A pity your group is the only right wing one that managed to do as well, David.
March 19th, 2009 at 7:57 am
The chilling effect for the EFA on democracy in New Zealand was unacceptable. Helen Clark lost her job because of it.
A deserved outcome.