Union spending in the campaign

The Electoral Commission has also published the spending of the registered third parties, who spent over the disclosure limit.

The NZEI spent $280,000 campaigning against National and national standards.under

Just behind it was the PSA who also spent $196,000 campaigning against National, including texting people in the final week of the election to vote to support strong unions.

The big money was also with the Campaign for MMP (despite the hysterical claims about business funding the Vote for Change campaign. The Campaign for MMP spent $157,000 while Vote for Change spent a mere $80,000. There was also referendum spending pro MMP by some of the political parties and unions, but under the disclosure limit.

As with previous elections the spending by unions is a magnitude greater than that by business groups.