Updated: High net worth individuals are back behind New Zealand First as it bids for a return to Parliament three years after being expelled in the Labour landslide
Packaging billionaire Graeme Hart is backing Winston Peters and New Zealand First again – with a $100,000 donation declared this month despite his family name being aired in a court prosecution over donations to that party's foundation in 2019.
All up, Hart has been putting in $700,000 across centre right parties over the past reporting years. Hart's company Rank Group also gave $150,000 to National in the declarations made with the Electoral Commission on September 14, and had funded Act in April to the tune of $100,000. In 2022 Hart gave $250,000 to National and $100,000 to Act.
This is the first known Hart donation to Peters' party since the controversy over its New Zealand First Foundation soliciting donations from high net worth individuals, including many in the racing and fishing industries and others including the therapeutic health products sector.
The donation to NZ First shows the country's richest man is now prepared to openly support the Peters' party four years after three donations just under the $15,000 publicly declarable mark were made to the foundation. The foundation was an entity separate from the party which when its operations were exposed by media faced investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
Two people were charged with obtaining by deception over a total of $750,000 that went to the foundation, some of it having been used to pay for a NZ First Party campaign office and election expenses, including an IT programme and services. The pair was found not guilty at the High Court because a judge decreed the foundation was not a 'party' for the purposes of the relevant law. But the Crown took the case to the Court of Appeal this month seeking to overturn those verdicts.
The Hart family donations in 2019 came from a Hart company named Church Bay Farm Ltd, his son Harrison's business Walter & Wild and son-in-law Duncan Hawkesby's business Hawk Marine, all at $14,995, which meant they would not need to be publicly declared.
Hart, aged 68 and with a net worth of around $12 billion according to the NBR Rich List, told the SFO during the inquiry he "decided I wished to provide financial support to New Zealand First by way of a donation. This came about after discussions with my extended family including Harrison Hart and Duncan".
Hart Senior gave an adviser verbal authorisation to make a payment. "I had no knowledge of the structure. I understood an account number had been provided."
His latest donation comes at a time when NZ First is building support to around the MMP 5 percent threshold for entering Parliament, after three years out of office having attracted just 2.6 percent of party votes in 2020.
Evidence given in the NZ First Foundation trial showed a public relations figure, Thomas Pryor, had emailed Duncan Hawkesby to say he had spoken to a then-New Zealand First MP Clayton Mitchell "re CGT" and "overall was a really positive conversation and their thinking is very much aligned". Pryor then set a meeting between Hawkesby and Mitchell and suggested it would be good if Graeme Hart could "drop by".
Hawkesby's evidence said Hart did greet Mitchell but left after a couple of minutes and the MP set about outlining funding requirements including costs incurred at a previous election.
CGT was the capital gains tax which around the time of the donations, in March 2019, was still under consideration by the Labour-NZ First government.
A government announcement on April 17, 2019 put an end to the proposal for a capital gains tax. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said: "All parties in the government entered into this debate with different perspectives and, after significant discussion, we have ultimately been unable to find a consensus. As a result, we will not be introducing a capital gains tax."
NZ First has received a total of $831,141 in declarable donations above $20,000 – including Hart's $100,000, two donations totalling $150,000 from Auckland property investor Mark Wyborn, $68,000 from the estate of Hugh Barr and $50,000 from richlister Trevor Farmer this year.
Update, Tuesday September 19: Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told media: "The National Party, the Act Party and the NZ First Party are all being supported by the big money end of town, because those people, with large amounts of wealth see that their interests are best going to be protected by [those parties]. The Labour Party has always relied on small donations from people at the grassroots because that's who we are in politics to fight for."
