Last night the news broke that National’s donation scandal is a whole lot worse than National was letting on. Not only do the charges relate to the original $100,000 donation highlighted by whistle-blower Jami-Lee Ross, but it appears there was another $100,000 donation as well:
The Serious Fraud Office prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves not one but two $100,000 donations – in June 2017 and June 2018.
Court charging documents released to the media by order of Auckland District Court Judge Edwin Paul today show that three of the four defendants – whose names are suppressed ahead of a hearing next week – each face two joint charges of deception over a sum of $100,000 donated to National in 2017 and $100,050 donated to the party in 2018. The maximum penalty if convicted on the charge is seven years’ imprisonment.
The fourth person is charged jointly with the others only over the second $100,050 donation – but also faces one charge of providing misleading information to the SFO.
Lawyers for the defendants had opposed media having access to documents on the court file.
The SFO’s wording for the joint deception charges says: “By deception or without claim of right directly or indirectly obtained for the National Party possession of, or control over, any property, namely a $100,050 [for the 2018 charge] donation made to the National Party between June 1, 2018 and June 8, 2018 (“the 2018 donation”) in circumstances where the identity of the donor was not disclosed in the National Party’s Annual Return of Party Donations.”
For the fourth person’s charge of misleading the SFO, the charging document says: “In the course of complying with a requirement … of the Serious Fraud Act 1990 supplied information knowing it was false or misleading in a material particular.”
The SFO says of that charge that this defendant told investigators a $100,000 sum transferred to their account was a deposit for a building on another person’s property – when the money had been intended as a donation to the National Party. Further, in 2019 the defendant created, signed and back-dated a contract to that end, when no real contract for that work existed. The office alleges the made-up contract copied wording from an unrelated contract.
The SFO describes the offending over the donations in these words: “The defendants adopted a fraudulent device, trick or stratagem whereby the […] donation was split into sums of money less than $15,000 and transferred into bank accounts of eight different people before being paid to, and retained by, the National Party.”
So, it looks like Paula Bennett‘s carry-on yesterday was designed to do two things. Firstly to ramp up pressure on Winston Peters in order to cover National’s own rather more serious donations scandal, and secondly to make a play for the leadership because she knows that all roads lead back to Simon Bridges and the leadership of the party.
The National Party has known about the extra fraudulent donation because regional chairs have been going around electorate meetings desperately trying to round up spare scratch. When challenged over this they are sheepishly admitting that more donations from dodgy Chinese donors are coming to light.
All of a sudden the focus is going to be on Simon Bridges and not Winston Peters. It appears he has continued on from John Key and Bill English in selling out the National Party’s interests to connected Chinese Communist Party operatives.
You may be sure that those charged so far will sing like the proverbial canaries to avoid going to jail, and as the SFO starts pulling on threads, all roads are going to lead up the chain to those in charge. Political parties are hierarchical and anyone inside National who has had their grubby mitts anywhere near the money is going to have their collars felt. No one, especially the SFO and judges, will believe that low level people were authorised to act without scrutiny of the board or the leadership. That is where Simon Bridges is going to find himself.
There are plenty of photos of senior National party officials, including the president, leader and deputy leader, snuggling up to these dodgy Chinese donors. Explaining those photos away to the SFO might prove troublesome.
There can now be no mistake that it is the National Party that is beholden to dirty offshore money. It is still sitting in their now tainted bank accounts, swilling around tainting everything it touches.
Whose pocket is Simon Bridges in?
