Stuff has details of party donations for 2016: National tops donations with almost $2m given to the party in 2016
The total donations disclosed for 2016 were:
- National: $1,943,324
- Greens: $860,746
- Labour: $563,915
- Conservatives: $139,450
- ACT: $108,730
- NZ First: $54,946
- Maori Party: $42,237
- United Future: Nil
- Mana: Nil
National and Greens are doing well, Labour is still lagging badly. Labour are doing more to try to get small donations after building contact lists, but that didn’t show up much in last year’s totals.
How does this compare to donations in 2013, the year before the last election?
- National: $1,037,537
- Greens: $386,711
- Labour: $486,506
- Conservatives: $197,570
- ACT: $138,840
- NZ First: $3,050
- Maori Party: $74,409
- United Future: Nil
- Mana: 28,374
So National and Greens are well ahead, while Labour is up a bit but their fundraising last term was woeful. They have a lot of work to do this year.
Your NZ 
David
/ 5th May 2017Given how much influence Labour gave the unions and how they tow the union line even sometimes at the expense of their natural constituency its surprising how little money the affiliated unions give the party.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th May 2017‘toe the line’. It’s a line drawn, not a line towed like a rope, which doesn’t really make sense.
Yes, the Labour supporters seem to be a stingy lot. Even if most of the donations were from them, it’s still a stingy total.
Gezza
/ 5th May 2017The amusing thing for me is that the expression “toe the line” is so often misquoted as “tow the line” in a slightly different context nowadays that in reality common usage has given it a particular meaning of its own..
“Toe the line” is the original expression meaning to stand poised at the starting line or at any other set boundary limit. (Our college woodwork teacher – a curious little quasi-fascist with a surname that was even German & started with H, so was often muttered behind his back with “Heil” said in front of it, and accompanied by quickly thrown a well-known salute – had a yellow line painted around the outline of his own woodwork bench about 4 feet out from it – and we literally had to come up and stand right behind it while he showed us the next step in how were to make the standard mini-bookcase.
Idiomatically it means being required to conform to a rule or standard.
“Tow the line” is coming to have a slightly different common idiomatic meaning of repeating or advocating somebody’s well-worn or well-known mantra, theme, political party or corporate propaganda or policy, or PR line.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th May 2017I can’t understand how people can think that it’s ‘tow the line’ which doesn’t make sense in this context. It should be obvious that it’s referring to the other kind of line.It’s like people saying ‘killing the golden goose’. That makes no sense, either, it’s ‘killing the goose that lays the golden EGGS.’ Then there’s ‘the proof’s in the pudding’, another senseless version of the real thing . The proof of WHAT’S in the pudding ? It should be obvious that it is ‘the prof of the pudding’s in the eating’ !
It’s sloppy thinking-if people must use these well-worn sayings, they could at least say them correctly !
Gezza
/ 5th May 2017Dad often used to say “He’d moan if his arse was on fire”. I always used to smile, he often shortened expressions so that the context & the meaning was lost. He didn’t have much education, left school quite early I think. Most people would probably moan about it if their arse was on fire. I imagine the original expression was something like “He’d moan if his arse was on fire & somebody threw a bucket of water over him to put it out”.
Pete George
/ 5th May 2017I remember the short version but not the long one. Never thought about it being contradictory on it’s own.
Gezza
/ 5th May 2017I must see if I can track it down Pete. Dad always used it in the context where somebody was a person who complained about everything, or for not being grateful for something done for them. What was the context in which you heard it used? I’d never come across it before. My own father never used it, nor did any of my other older male relatives on either side of the family.
Pete George
/ 5th May 2017I remember the short version being used to mean someone who complained easily.
Gezza
/ 5th May 2017This was all I could find. And the comments aren’t enlghtening either.
http://www.experienceproject.com/question-answer/Youd-Moan-If-Your-ARSE-Was-On-Fire/406214
Nelly Smickers
/ 5th May 2017Wayne’s mum uses a couple of *real beauties*…..but they’d probably only go straight into auto-mod XD
Kitty Catkin
/ 11th May 2017Crudeness and wit are not synonymous.
patupaiarehe
/ 11th May 2017Not always Kitty, but when my dear old Dad used to say that someone was “About as useful as a snatch full of snow”, even Mum used to chuckle… 😀
Brown
/ 5th May 2017… its surprising how little money the affiliated unions give the party according to the declarations. Fixed it for you.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th May 2017Nobody would not declare donations, the repercussions would not be worth it. There is no point, anyway.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th May 2017They’d be breaking the law if they concealed donations-no party would do this. You are accusing them of committing a crime.
dave1924
/ 6th May 2017Campaigning using Union cars, office facilities etc is not counted in donations Brown – you are 100% correct.
The focus on pure monetary donations under estimates Labours campaigning effort capability
Kitty Catkin
/ 11th May 2017This is not correct. Goods and services count as donations and must be declared.
dave1924
/ 11th May 2017really kitty… want to show me the declarations? the ones that cover everything Union reps do to promote the Party?
PartisanZ
/ 11th May 2017Is it really that much different to campaigning using corporate ‘think tanks’?
Consortium influence …?
Kitty Catkin
/ 12th May 2017The Electoral Commission states that goods and services can be counted as donations-this, I suppose, means that someone can’t get around the donation rules by saying that no actual money changed hands. If I booked out the most expensive lodge in NZ for an Act conference and flew all comers in (well, we can all dream) I imagine that I couldn’t get away with saying that it wasn’t a donation.Of course the declarations don’t and can’t cover every possible permutation, but you can see what’s covered if you look it up.
Blazer
/ 5th May 2017so National has more than every other party together…money talks…plenty of Hagamans…around…I guess.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th May 2017They still can only spend the same amount per capita for elections as everyone else.
John Schmidt
/ 5th May 2017Why do unsuccesful people have such a problem with succesful people.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th May 2017Um….er… well, I have thought long and hard .but I can’t imagine why this is, can you ? 😀 It will be forever an unsolved mystery.
Blazer
/ 5th May 2017whats your definition of..success?
Traveller
/ 5th May 2017They’re just the party people like more blazer.
Corky
/ 5th May 2017Blazer, the question is: where did the Greens get their money from?
Corky
/ 5th May 2017I think Labour has to concede……sausage sizzles aren’t cutting the mustard anymore. Maybe the Greens can give Andy some pointers.
Blazer
/ 6th May 2017muffin stalls and tarot readings.
PartisanZ
/ 6th May 2017‘Think Tanks’ are clearly the answer … and have been for some considerable time … Think Tanks are conduits to Political Party funding …
Labour doesn’t have enough Think Tanks …
Wouldn’t be all that difficult to create several more, and make them popular … Just need some smart people with good social values who can manipulate language and statistics really well … plus a few business leaders who still have a conscience …
Kitty Catkin
/ 11th May 2017If Blazer has to ask what success is, he wouldn’t understand the answer.
PartisanZ
/ 11th May 2017Successful people continually ask what success is Miss Kitty. And the most successful don’t answer …
Kitty Catkin
/ 13th May 2017That is an unproveable generalisation.
Gezza
/ 12th May 2017The most common understanding of success is the achievement of a goal or objective, imo. Whatever that might be – make a million, pass a course, get elected, irritate someone on a blogsite, whatever.