Thanks to some old fashioned shoe-leather reporting by Stuff’s Matt Shand, we have learned more about the mysterious NZ First Foundation. However, the strange dealings of the organisation have only raised more issues. That, in turn, raised the obvious question for many of my friends online: how can all this said to be Simon Bridges’ fault?
For many, the go-to defence of NZ First is to accuse National of running the same dodge. The supposed evidence for this is that exists a body called the National Foundation that also receives donations. Since both the NZ First Foundation and the National Foundation have “Foundation” in their name this allowed the usual suspects to throw up their hands and conclude that the only problem was the existence of foundations.
Inevitably, Winston Peters alighted on the same strategy. As Parliament used urgency to rapidly pass changes to donations laws that even its friendles agree are pretty meaningless, the Deputy Prime Minister claimed the organisation sloshing money around with his party was based on the National Foundation.
Even if that’s how the organisation was originally conceived, it’s not how it has been run. Shand ably explains why here. All the important ways in which the organisations differ is what makes the NZ First Foundation affair a scandal.
The thing is, nobody really knows what’s going on with this entity. That’s probably by design since, after all, anonymity is one of the key features of trusts. Some of what happens just looks inexplicable – like advances being made and then quickly repaid. In other circumstances, we might even call them red flags. But we can’t say with certainty that anything seriously untoward has happened.
One of the ironies, of course, is that Winston Peters seems to have criticised the National Foundation back in 2014. In a Newshub story breathlessly reporting accusations the National Party was involved in the disreputable activity “systematic fundraising”, Peters is stated to compared the trust to the claimed cash-for-access “Cabinet Club” program.
(With regard to Cabinet Clubs, it goes without saying that we haven’t heard much from the Deputy Prime Minister about $1,500 per head lunches with Jacinda Ardern either).
“What you buy, is what you own,” Jud Crandell says in Pet Sematary, The Labour Party bought NZ First when they went into coalition and they, not National, own this scandal. “And what you own,” Crandall noted, “always comes home to you.”
UPDATE: Per David Farrar’s post this morning, there’s no denying this now.