And, by the way, the only reason Act could have for wanting to hide their donors is because they know it will make them look corrupt. It’s like Trump wanting to hide his tax return.
I don’t think this is necessarily true. I’ve personally never felt compelled to donate to a political party. If I did have money and wanted to donate a substantial amount some day, though, then I think I’d feel very uneasy about my name being out in public. That’s always going to attract attention from people who you don’t necessarily want chasing you around and trying to look into your interests and maybe your private life. I definitely wouldn’t want to be seen donating money to Act, but it’d probably put me off for any political party.
I don’t think this concern makes it okay to keep donations anonymous in the same way as happens presently. We need to rethink the system.
Yes I agree. Also if you check the register, donor’s addresses are published too.
If someone’s concern is not privacy but that they don’t want to be seen donating to Act, they probably shouldn’t be donating.
I’m convincing myself we should extend the (already pretty generous) public funding for political advertising, and ban donations. The premise of donating to political parties concerns me somewhat.
If someone’s concern is not privacy but that they don’t want to be seen donating to Act, they probably shouldn’t be donating.
Maybe it comes under privacy, but the main scenario I can think of is similar to a reason why I think guaranteed anonymous voting is really important. For example, maybe your workplace surrounds you with very strong unionists or very strong capitalists, or just extremely opinionated people who potentially have a lot of power and influence over you if and when they choose to exert it. It’s not always ideal for your political affiliations to be out in public, so in those kinds of situations it could be a very strong disincentive for a person, or a general group of people, to donate due to peer pressure reasons that don’t apply to others.
I’m convincing myself we should extend the (already pretty generous) public funding for political advertising, and ban donations. The premise of donating to political parties concerns me somewhat.
That and/or just limit the size of donations and sources to identifiable individuals, imho.
To me politics and political discussion should be driven by the enthusiasm of people who are being governed. If lots of people like an idea then each can donate a modest amount towards helping communicate it to others, just as they might donate their time. That way the movements have an amount of money and time roughly proportionate to their amount of support and enthusiasm, and I don’t have much of a problem with that. I have more of a problem with disproportionately rich people donating disproportionately large amounts of money to promote and wash their ideas over everyone else’s discussion.
Maybe it comes under privacy, but the main scenario I can think of is similar to a reason why I think guaranteed anonymous voting is really important. For example, maybe your workplace surrounds you with very strong unionists or very strong capitalists, or just extremely opinionated people who potentially have a lot of power and influence over you if and when they choose to exert it. It’s not always ideal for your political affiliations to be out in public, so in those kinds of situations it could be a very strong disincentive for a person, or a general group of people, to donate due to peer pressure reasons that don’t apply to others.
Yes I guess this falls under privacy, but it’s a good point. It’s possible to fully believe you are in the right, but not want those around you to see you as the enemy.
That and/or just limit the size of donations and sources to identifiable individuals, imho.
Yes, it’s the idea of parties relying on money from private people and parties that concerns me. But banning donations does make it more difficult for new parties to start (who presumably wouldn’t be able to get started without a large donation). Like almost anything controversial, there are no simple answers.
To me politics and political discussion should be driven by the enthusiasm of people who are being governed. If lots of people like an idea then each can donate a modest amount towards helping communicate it to others, just as they might donate their time. That way the movements have an amount of money and time roughly proportionate to their amount of support and enthusiasm, and I don’t have much of a problem with that.
I think the public funding model accounts for this. Parties currently get government funding, and it is apportioned based on a bunch of things such as level of support in previous elections and support for candidates in local elections. The pool of money would need to be larger I think, but I’m ok with that. We are only talking about a few million dollars a year.
I have more of a problem with disproportionately rich people donating disproportionately large amounts of money to promote and wash their ideas over everyone else’s discussion.
In 2022, National received about $5m in donations and Act received about 2m.
Act and National total, approx $7,200,000
All other parties combined, approx $1,260,000
This is not unexpected, you would expect National and Act to attract wealthy people and therefore large donations. But it does seem to give more voice to a smaller number of people.
The breakdown of the “All other parties” Is roughly $400k Labour, $400k Greens, $300k NZ First, plus some other parties with $50k or less total each. Notably, TOP received about $4,000 in donations, making me wonder if all those people on reddit aren’t that willing to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to supporting TOP. In the years leading up to the 2020 election they were getting $60k-$80k a year (from donors under $15k, mostly under $1.5k), so it’s interesting it dropped so substantially.
I think it’ll be interesting to see how it compares in the election year, but subjectively at least it’s seemed to me that Act and National have been making themselves far more visible out in public than other parties. Especially once you get out of the cities. I guess if you’re raising so much, you need to be spending it outside the controlled pre-election period, or you won’t be able to spend it.
Those 2022 numbers are pretty much the most National and Act have got ever (based on just scanning back through the years on the page I linked - so I may have missed some). I am very interested to see if it’s significantly larger this year.
I don’t think this is necessarily true. I’ve personally never felt compelled to donate to a political party. If I did have money and wanted to donate a substantial amount some day, though, then I think I’d feel very uneasy about my name being out in public. That’s always going to attract attention from people who you don’t necessarily want chasing you around and trying to look into your interests and maybe your private life. I definitely wouldn’t want to be seen donating money to Act, but it’d probably put me off for any political party.
I don’t think this concern makes it okay to keep donations anonymous in the same way as happens presently. We need to rethink the system.
Yes I agree. Also if you check the register, donor’s addresses are published too.
If someone’s concern is not privacy but that they don’t want to be seen donating to Act, they probably shouldn’t be donating.
I’m convincing myself we should extend the (already pretty generous) public funding for political advertising, and ban donations. The premise of donating to political parties concerns me somewhat.
Just on this…
Maybe it comes under privacy, but the main scenario I can think of is similar to a reason why I think guaranteed anonymous voting is really important. For example, maybe your workplace surrounds you with very strong unionists or very strong capitalists, or just extremely opinionated people who potentially have a lot of power and influence over you if and when they choose to exert it. It’s not always ideal for your political affiliations to be out in public, so in those kinds of situations it could be a very strong disincentive for a person, or a general group of people, to donate due to peer pressure reasons that don’t apply to others.
That and/or just limit the size of donations and sources to identifiable individuals, imho.
To me politics and political discussion should be driven by the enthusiasm of people who are being governed. If lots of people like an idea then each can donate a modest amount towards helping communicate it to others, just as they might donate their time. That way the movements have an amount of money and time roughly proportionate to their amount of support and enthusiasm, and I don’t have much of a problem with that. I have more of a problem with disproportionately rich people donating disproportionately large amounts of money to promote and wash their ideas over everyone else’s discussion.
Yes I guess this falls under privacy, but it’s a good point. It’s possible to fully believe you are in the right, but not want those around you to see you as the enemy.
Yes, it’s the idea of parties relying on money from private people and parties that concerns me. But banning donations does make it more difficult for new parties to start (who presumably wouldn’t be able to get started without a large donation). Like almost anything controversial, there are no simple answers.
I think the public funding model accounts for this. Parties currently get government funding, and it is apportioned based on a bunch of things such as level of support in previous elections and support for candidates in local elections. The pool of money would need to be larger I think, but I’m ok with that. We are only talking about a few million dollars a year.
In 2022, National received about $5m in donations and Act received about 2m.
Act and National total, approx $7,200,000
All other parties combined, approx $1,260,000
This is not unexpected, you would expect National and Act to attract wealthy people and therefore large donations. But it does seem to give more voice to a smaller number of people.
The breakdown of the “All other parties” Is roughly $400k Labour, $400k Greens, $300k NZ First, plus some other parties with $50k or less total each. Notably, TOP received about $4,000 in donations, making me wonder if all those people on reddit aren’t that willing to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to supporting TOP. In the years leading up to the 2020 election they were getting $60k-$80k a year (from donors under $15k, mostly under $1.5k), so it’s interesting it dropped so substantially.
I think it’ll be interesting to see how it compares in the election year, but subjectively at least it’s seemed to me that Act and National have been making themselves far more visible out in public than other parties. Especially once you get out of the cities. I guess if you’re raising so much, you need to be spending it outside the controlled pre-election period, or you won’t be able to spend it.
Those 2022 numbers are pretty much the most National and Act have got ever (based on just scanning back through the years on the page I linked - so I may have missed some). I am very interested to see if it’s significantly larger this year.