{"id":33034,"date":"2021-06-13T05:00:40","date_gmt":"2021-06-12T20:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/commentisfree\/2021\/jun\/13\/new-zealands-campaign-finance-laws-are-broken-that-can-have-enormous-consequences"},"modified":"2021-06-13T05:00:40","modified_gmt":"2021-06-12T20:00:40","slug":"new-zealands-campaign-finance-laws-are-broken-that-can-have-enormous-consequences-pete-mckenzie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=33034","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand\u2019s campaign finance laws are broken. That can have enormous consequences |  Pete McKenzie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An increased appetite for political donations strengthens the political influence of the wealthiest New Zealanders<\/p>\n<p>The spokesperson for Aotearoa New Zealand\u2019s Green party was genuinely surprised. She had called after I informed them that a major donor to their 2020 election campaign had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsroom.co.nz\/greens-wont-be-returning-54k-donations-from-animal-abuser\">subsequently pleaded guilty to animal neglect<\/a>. The spokesperson said the Greens had not known about the neglect when they took her money.<\/p>\n<p>They nevertheless refused to donate it onwards. They argued the Incorporated Societies Act required them to hold on to it. As I later found out, that\u2019s not quite true: returning the donation, or donating it to an organisation like the SPCA, seems to be possible according to their party\u2019s charter.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/commentisfree\/2021\/jun\/13\/new-zealands-campaign-finance-laws-are-broken-that-can-have-enormous-consequences\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An increased appetite for political donations strengthens the political influence of the wealthiest New ZealandersThe spokesperson for Aotearoa New Zealand\u2019s Green party was genuinely surprised. She had called after I informed them that a major donor t&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,56,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-new-zealand","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2251"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33035,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33034\/revisions\/33035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}