This is edition 2026/084 of the Ten@10 newsletter.
Hi all,
This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media.
Enjoy!
1. Democracy Briefing: A Property developers’ government?
Bryce Edwards
- 🏢 Auckland construction businessman Michael Sullivan donated $200,000 to all three coalition parties on the same day — 20 January 2026 — splitting it across National, ACT, and NZ First.
- 💰 Property, construction, and infrastructure donors gave at least $497,000 in declared donations in 2025, almost entirely to the coalition government.
- 📊 RNZ data journalist Farah Hancock has documented more than $2.5 million from property-sector donors to coalition parties since 2021, with roughly 97% flowing to National, ACT, and NZ First.
- 🏛️ The planning system is being rewritten by the same parties whose campaigns are bankrolled by the industries the planning system was designed to constrain.
- 🏢 Carter Group donated $81,608 to National in 2025 — the largest single declared donation from an identifiable property company in that year's returns.
- ⚖️ Carter Group has three projects under consideration via the Fast-Track Approvals Act, including developments totalling 5,000-plus residential units, after one was rejected by Waimakariri District Council.
- 🏢 Mansons TCLM nearly tripled its corporate donation to National, giving $42,026 in 2025, up from $15,000 in 2024.
- 🔵 Prime Minister Christopher Luxon opened Mansons' $650 million Fifty Albert development in October 2024, illustrating the proximity between government and its donors.
- 💰 James Speedy gave $106,331 to National in 2025, the third-largest single gift to the party that year, across more than seventy property, hotel, and aged-care entities.
- 📈 The Greenlees brothers escalated their combined declared giving from $20,000 in 2024 to nearly $258,000 in 2025 across ACT and National.
- 👥 Dozens of smaller construction firms — including Breeze Construction, Atlas Concrete, and Cook Brothers — each wrote cheques of $5,000 to $36,000 to National and ACT in 2025.
- 🏛️ The same donor firms bankrolling coalition parties also funded Auckland mayor Wayne Brown's campaign, including Williams Corporation, Oyster Capital, and Precinct.
- ⚠️ Economist George Stigler's 1971 "regulatory capture" theory holds that regulation is acquired by industry and operated primarily for its benefit — the article applies this directly to New Zealand's planning system.
