Farah
Hancock, Data journalist, In Depth
Technology
entrepreneur Brian Cartmell appears to have donated at least
half a million dollars to the coalition parties – and to the
Opportunity party.
Cartmell moved to New Zealand in
2010 and gave up his US citizenship in 2015. His former
professional background includes working for the Internet
Entertainment Group, an online pornography company. It was a
pioneer in live webcam shows and subscription
services.
In a statement on his website, Cartmell said
he had donated equally to the three coalition parties as
well as to Opportunity. The ACT Party told RNZ it had
received a total of $200,000 from Cartmell last year. The
Electoral Commission said a $100,000 donation to Opportunity
from Cartmell had been disclosed. Neither National nor NZ
First would confirm donations from him.
But Cartmell
himself said the current coalition parties represent “the
best available chance of navigating” a period of significant
economic, technological, and geopolitical change in a way
that preserves New Zealand’s sovereignty, prosperity and
independence.
He said he chose to donate equal amounts
to National, Act and NZ First last year as none of the three
represents his thinking, but he believed the three parties
complemented each other. The donation to Opportunity was
made because he feels healthy democracies need parties
willing to put forward ideas major parties won’t.
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“New
ideas enter the political process from the edges, and
parties like Opportunity play an important role in making
sure that process doesn’t stagnate.”
Who is Brian
Cartmell?
Cartmell lives in Queenstown with his
partner. He says he has donated more than $1 million to a
range of organisations including Starship Children’s
Hospital, Cure Kids, Hato Hone St John and NZSAS Regiment
Trust.
In the 1990s, he worked at Internet
Entertainment Group helping it to develop
live streaming technology.
Cartmell also founded a
domain registry firm in 1997 which managed domain names with
the .cc extension, associated with the Cocos Islands
territory, an island territory with a population of around
600 people. He told the United States Senate Commerce
Committee 400,000 domain names were registered to the
extension. The Australian
Financial Review reported the islands received no
benefits from domain name sales, although Cartmell did
distribute technology and grants. Cartmell sold the company
to Verisign in 2001 for an undisclosed sum.
Cartmell
also funded an anti-spam service called SpamAlert. This
company won a court case against the food company Hormel,
maker of tinned Spam, over the use of the word spam. He was
also an early adopter of cryptocurrency Bitcoin and
participated in the first funding round of
Coinbase.
The Companies Register shows he is a
director of three New Zealand companies and a shareholder in
an additional 12 companies. These include crowdsourcing
platform PledgeMe, food and beverage companies Angel Food
and Yeastie Boys. He has a small shareholding in Invisible
Urban Charging, an electric car charging company co-founded
by former National Party MP Jake Bezzant.
According to
Cartmell’s website he is seeking investment opportunities
and is looking for innovative start-ups in transformative
technologies.
Parties respond
Opportunity
party general manager Iain Lees-Galloway said the cash
injection, which was declared as being received on 25
February was incredibly helpful for the small party, which
is not in parliament.
“We don’t have parliamentary
resources to run our campaigns that sitting MPs do. So a
donation like this makes a huge difference to us to be able
to get our message out.”
Donations would be spent on
marketing as well as travel and events. The party has
received one other big donation of $50,000 from Phillip
Mills, taking its currently declared total for 2026 to
$150,000.
Donations made in the 2025 calendar year
will be published in early May. Donations made in an
election year must be declared within 20 days if they are
more than $20,000.
An ACT party spokesperson confirmed
Cartmell had made donations in 2025 but had not made any
donations this year.
“ACT New Zealand received a
donation from Brian Cartmell of $100k in December last year.
He donated a total of $200k to ACT in 2025.”
New
Zealand First party secretary Holly Howard said donations
would be disclosed as required by law.
“Out of respect
for our donors’ privacy and due process, we will not provide
commentary or confirmation on individual donations ahead of
the statutory reporting requirements.”
The National
Party said it wouldn’t comment on individual donations,
except where required by law through donation
disclosures.
Information released on the electoral
commission website shows coalition parties have received
$750,000 in donations of over $20,000 so far this year.
National has received $250,000, ACT $350,000 and NZ First
$150,000.
The Greens have received $43,000 and Labour
$22,000.
Cartmell’s statement says he supports
transparent political donations, but will be making no
further statements on the matter.
“These donations
were made with that broader objective in mind – with the
understanding that it is voters, not donors, who decide the
direction of New
Zealand.”
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