The flood of secret money flowing into political parties
shows the urgent need to clean up the electoral finance
rules if we are to avoid a US-style system of
one-dollar-one-vote, says Greenpeace Aotearoa.
“This
flood of secret money into political parties is a systemic
threat to our democracy. We need to clean up the electoral
finance rules as a matter of urgency,” says Dr Russel
Norman, Greenpeace Aotearoa Executive Director.
There
has been a surge of ‘anonymous’ donations into political
parties, nearly $500,000 so far this year. While the
identity of the donors is kept secret from the public, there
is no way of knowing if in fact the parties receiving the
money know the identities.
“We need to close the
loophole that allows these anonymous donations, just as we
need to ban corporate donations and put a low cap on
individual donations,” says Norman.
“These secret
donations could be coming from polluting industries such as
agribusiness, the oil industry, the fishing industry seeking
to influence the political parties to protect their
profits.
“We know already that there has been millions
going into the political parties connected to fast track
applications.
“The process for reforming campaign
finance needs to be led by citizens, not political parties.
The last independent review of electoral finance rules
recommended removing these anonymous donations but the
political parties did not progress these changes.
“We
call on all political parties to commit to a citizens
assembly led process to review the electoral finance laws
and to commit to implementing the recommendations of the
citizens assembly.
“As a society we need to make
significant changes if we are to address the climate and
biodiversity crises, but vested interests are donating to
political parties in an effort to protect the status quo. We
need to free our political system of the corrupting
influence of secret
money.”
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