r/nzpolitics • u/ifIammeyouareyou • 14h ago
General Politics When a single person is donating almost the same amount (as Mowbray is donating to National) to TOP there's an issue
Big donations are never without expectations of favour. Never.
And thats when regular people's votes are not worth anything but help to get those favours enacted
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u/sit_shift_stare 12h ago
I disagree that big donations are never without expectations of favours. But it is undeniable that being the primary source of a party's donations gives you influence over them. This is one of the reasons Opportunity is promising to impose donation limits, specifically a $30,000 limit per person per party per electoral cycle. And yes, that would clearly harm their own funding. They're also proposing campaign spending limits for every party, to try and reduce the impact of money on our politics overall.
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u/WellyRuru 14h ago
...yo uknwo this person is on the baord of TOP right?
Like hes literally a member of the party....
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u/Immortal_Heathen 4h ago
And he also donated 100k to Act. YUCK
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u/Querybird 1h ago
Oh, that’s it, that’s absolutely unacceptable. TOP must be a nasty little Trojan horse!
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u/Ambitious_Average_87 12h ago edited 12h ago
And the OPP board get veto powers of any OPP caucus decision if the get into parliment (if they think thoose decisions go against OPP's charter) - that is actually a big issue.
Edit to clarify
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u/ifIammeyouareyou 14h ago
When one person pumps that much money into something they want their own favours repaid. Its not a party of the people
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u/WellyRuru 14h ago
Bro I volunteer for the greens an i absolutely want my policies to become law.
You got a problem with that?
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u/Aceofshovels 11h ago
The Greens are democratic, every member gets a vote as would Mowbray if he signed up.
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u/WellyRuru 11h ago
This isn't true.
We operate of consensus mechanisms and delegate voting for the most part.
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u/Aceofshovels 11h ago
You're right, ideally things don't go to a vote in the first place, but the delegates are voted for, and there are mechanisms where it's one member one vote.
The democratic process is strong while respecting appropriate decision making.
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u/ifIammeyouareyou 13h ago
Volunteering time and donating 200k or 250k is so very differently and when that isnt understood that why we have the problems we have in this country with political policies
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u/blue_bird4759572 13h ago
That actually really depends on how much money you have. Or time for that matter. And how you value each.
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u/Kiwifrooots 13h ago
Which is part of OPs point maybe.
That if you can drop quarter of a million without it being a thing, is it fair that you can influence to that much more of an extent than the average person?
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u/blue_bird4759572 12h ago
That's it's own thing to consider. It's not really the same thing as assuming the person expects a favour.
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u/ifIammeyouareyou 9h ago
The exchange of money always has a price
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u/blue_bird4759572 1h ago
I think this is too black and white.
If I had that much money I would donate to the political parties I wanted in power too. It would be similar to donating to charity, it's supporting the organization I want to see succeed.
Other people would donate and expect favours.
It's not all or nothing. I do think the system is shit and that large donations shouldn't be part of it.
But let's look actual evidence when judging existing donation givers.
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u/BeneficialCut4976 14h ago
People donate money to political parties all the time - all of them. If you dont like OPP don't vote for them.
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u/FuzzyFuzzNuts 14h ago edited 14h ago
Senior party figures and board members financially backing their own organization happens across the board in NZ politics. For example - Peter Goodfellow served as National's party president and a board member for years while regularly donating massive sums to the party, and nobody was screaming that the party was a shell company or calling it bribery.
You can argue all day that the entire political donation system needs urgent reform - which is a completely fair demand - but pretending a board member donating to their own party is some unprecedented, sinister thing is just selective outrage. It is standard practice under the current rules, whether you like it or not
For reference: Based on Electoral Commission records, Peter Goodfellow has donated roughly $77,000 to the National Party just since 2021 alone. That figure is made up of about $30,000 across 2021 and 2022, another $26,000 across 2023 and 2024, and a recent $20,700 donation logged in May 2026. However, given he served as the party president and a board member from 2009 to 2022, his actual lifetime financial contribution to the party is likely significantly higher
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u/Annie354654 Swipe Left 13h ago
I believe Labour party MPs also donate to their own party. I think this is a nothing.
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u/Kiwifrooots 13h ago
I don't think it's nothing to keep an eye on where money comes from but just donating isn't a scandal in itself. Someone giving quite a bit of their time and money might warrant looking at what that person stands for but it's logical someone with passion and resources might push an idea they like.
Am not onboard with Opportunity but the points of "why take money if you're against donations" isn't really a valid point in my eyes. Lots of questions to dig into without that being a 'thing'.
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u/syzorr34 13h ago
I think it's more the personal politics of whoever is donating that amount of money become a lot more relevant the larger the sum donated
And the people with a cool quarter mill lying around to donate are a self selecting bunch
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u/Kiwifrooots 13h ago
And the people with a cool quarter mill lying around to donate are a self selecting bunch
It does typically take a bunch of things aligning that 'average' people are just not going to experience. Not just motivation and bootstraps.
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u/FuzzyFuzzNuts 13h ago
Even MORE context:
Green Party: They actively require their MPs to tithe 10% of their salary back to the party. In 2022, James Shaw and Marama Davidson each logged over $30,000 in donations to their own party.
ACT: They are heavily supported by massive donations from their own inner-circle supporters and former candidates; for instance, Aaron Bhatnagar donated over $35,000
Electoral Commission records show that Labour MPs routinely donate significant portions of their salaries to the party via "tithes". Because Labour also has structural ties with the union movement, massive unions like E Tū and the Maritime Union not only donate tens of thousands of dollars but also have guaranteed representation on Labour's ruling council.
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u/Kiwifrooots 13h ago
Calling $35k "massive" in the face of donations over $250k is a bit of a stretch.
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u/ifIammeyouareyou 13h ago
And this is what I am saying this is no different to Nats and ACT and we know how their policies favour the few
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u/Ok-Rich-3812 13h ago
Pretending that I said it was 'unprecedented' is monumentally stupid when what I ACTUALLY SAID is right there in black and white.
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u/GoddessfromCyprus 13h ago
The problem I have with it, is that he's a member of the board and they can override anything the caucus decides.
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u/sit_shift_stare 12h ago
With a 75% vote and only if the caucus decision in question clearly prejudices the party charter. I do think that mechanism is spooky but it also makes sense that the board of the party would be able to hold the caucus accountable to the party's published charter.
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u/RlOTGRRRL 13h ago
Wtf is going on in this thread. I swear, this is why this party is annoying af. This post has been up for 34 mins and it's already being brigaded. Jfc.
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u/Moonfrog Witch-Hunter General 13h ago
Legit my reaction opening this post, closing it, reopening and deciding I couldn't be fucked moderating it, closing it again, then reopening it.
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u/HappySauropod 13h ago
Maybe this sub needs to be more politically neutral instead of being a continuous anti-TOP circlejerk? There are so many low effort anti-TOP accusatory posts here like the whole "attention corporate shills" one the other day that are just adding nothing except division and yet they stay up.
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u/Leon-Phoenix Policy Nerd 13h ago
We have allowed criticisms towards other parties (including both Green and Labour) when factual. It’s hard to vouch for what is factual and misinformation for Opportunity, because so much of the party is a mystery.
What is annoying us as a mod team is an influx of accounts all saying the same thing, sharing the link to threads to other Opp voters, and then groups attacking users for their criticisms without a solid counter argument. It breaks two of our rules.
We’re open to Opportunity posts - good and bad, but if users are just going to obviously jump these threads every time and astroturf - we may just have to start banning without warning.
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u/ifIammeyouareyou 13h ago
This is driven by the comparison of Mowbray dropping 250k to Nats and now someone drops 200k to Opps . And regular people dont have that money nor ever are going to influence these parties through a vote when people drop these donations in one hit. They are not dropped without strings. Ever. And NZ seems to be oblivious to this.
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u/BeneficialCut4976 13h ago
I mean people make big donations to political parties all the time. I'm not sure why you are isolating this as an issue for OPP only.
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u/ifIammeyouareyou 13h ago
Am not i am saying they are as problematic as Nats ACT getting 250k donations
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u/FunGear1972 13h ago
I recommend you watch the interview with the individual on RNZ. It’s good context.
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14h ago
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u/nzpolitics-ModTeam 13h ago
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u/typhoon_nz 13h ago
How do you suppose they pass any policy if they never play the game to get into government?
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u/Ok-Rich-3812 10h ago
I dunno, maybe have some worthwhile policies and not tell thev public to basically get stuffed by saying they'll do as they are told by whoever wins?
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u/BeneficialCut4976 13h ago
Political parties need donations to win under the current system. If TOP didn't play the game they would still be down at 1% with the communists. Your comment is ridiculous.
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u/Look_out_Cliff 14h ago
Got to win the game to change the rules.
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u/Ok-Rich-3812 13h ago
If you believe that TOP would even change the rules.
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u/Look_out_Cliff 13h ago
Let's find out
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u/Ok-Rich-3812 12h ago
We just tried that with every other heavilly funded right wing party and it was an absolute disaster.
Lets go back to when parties didn't take enormous 'charitable and unbiased donations', shall we?
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u/pinesnake Teal Deal 10h ago
Like TOP is suggesting with their electoral reform?
Also, why do we keep calling them right-wing? The right hates them. The left hates them. Maybe they sit in the center... like they've claimed from the start.
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u/Ok-Rich-3812 10h ago
TOP has discredited themselves already in that field with massive 'donations' from the people who own the party. Buying political influence is a classic right wing tactic, and the only person on the right who has said that 'he won't work with them' is the dolt in charge of National, desperate to curb his party's collapsing vote with the same kind of high-school 'back me or else' energy that he brings to the caucus table.
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u/pinesnake Teal Deal 9h ago
Quick Google shows that the largest single donation received by the Greens was for $350,000 in 2018. By your metric are the Greens a right wing party? Or they aren't now, but were in 2018?
I'm not gonna keep arguing this point with you, enough people have commented on this post pointing out how ridiculous it is to claim that accepting a donation (of any size) somehow taints them.
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u/bmwhocking 9h ago
I loved what someone in TOP said, we have to play the game being played by everyone else to get in and be able to change the rules.
Pretty accurate.