Stuart Smith
National MP
Kaikoura
Below is Stuart Smith’s response.
New Zealand’s electoral laws belong to all New Zealanders.
For democracy to work and for New Zealanders to ultimately have faith in our electoral system, it needs to be built on integrity and genuinely be non-partisan.
We believe the current electoral laws work well.
The Labour Government has commissioned an independent panel to review how elections are run which, among other things, is considering banning anonymous donations.
Alongside this, the Green Party has a ‘strengthening democracy’ bill, which places a $35,000 limit on annual donations to any political party or candidate and lowers the anonymity threshold to $1,000.
National is strongly of the view that taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund political parties any more than they do now.
That means we need to allow parties to accept donations in a responsible way.
At the moment people can donate up to $1,500 to a candidate and up to $15,000 to a political party and remain anonymous and we believe it should stay that way.
In our experience, people are often reluctant to donate if they are going to be publicly named – therefore changing the law runs the risk of fewer people willing to donate to political parties which could result in New Zealand moving towards state-funded political campaigns.
I think the last thing New Zealanders want to see is their hard-earned taxes being used to fund political campaigns rather than hospitals, schools and roads.
State-funded political parties would come with massive limitations, including how candidates travel around their electorates and how they communicate or advertise their views to their voters and the country.
Those who donate $15,000 or more to political parties clearly have a vested interest and therefore it should be declared.
Ultimately, we have had these established thresholds for a long time, and the case to change it seems unwarranted.
Any changes to our electoral system, like changing the voting age or extending the election cycle, need to be well-thought-out and allow all New Zealanders to weigh up the costs and benefits.
The way I see it though, is that our electoral donation laws are sound and we have enough checks and balances in place through the electoral commission to mitigate any breaches.
