Anonymous Donations starting to flow through Electoral Commission
One of the bizarre elements of the Electoral Finance Act is rather than abolishing anonymous donations, it routed them through the Electoral Commission allowing a party to receive $240,000 that way, with no individual donation bigger than $36,000.
The Commssion has updated its website with details of donations received and paid out:
In September it paid out $15,000, being three donations of $5,000 each to Progressives, National and Labour.
In October it has paid out $76,000 being $72,000 to National and $4,000 to Labour. So I would guess National had two $36,000 donations made as that is the maximum.
I was initially puzzled as to why someone would make a donation of $5,000 anonymously through the Electoral Commission. You see if they donated direct to the party their name would not be disclosed publicly unless it was over $10,000. I then thought of two possibilities:
- They had already given $10,000 to the party directly and wanted to give additional money without disclosure. The EFA actually allows a total of $66,000 to be donated over three years to a party without disclosure – $10K a year and $36K through the Electoral Commission.
- They genuinely want to be anonymous – even to the party officers and staff. If you donate $5k direct to a party your name is not published publicly but the party president, secretary and a couple of others will know. So if you want total anonymity then a $5k donation through the Electoral Commission makes sense.