KEY POINTS:
A new regime to clamp down on anonymous donations is expected to hit National Party coffers as Labour fights to "keep the hollow men and secret money out of politics".
The regime was inserted into the Electoral Finance Bill by the justice and electoral select committee, which reported its changes yesterday.
The original bill did not address the matter of anonymous donations, but in an eleventh-hour change the select committee introduced a completely new regime.
The hardest hit by the new limits will be National, which got $1.7 million through trusts in the last election.
National deputy leader Bill English has criticised the Government for making "last-minute law" and dismissed the bill as "another example of control freakery from a Government that treats the public as if they are stupid".
He said National had always been open to discuss new rules about anonymous donations and was "surprised" to see the regime in which the limit of $240,000 seemed "coincidentally" close to Labour's anonymous donation haul of $315,000 in the 2005 election period.
The changes to the way elections can be funded were sparked by events of the last election - in particular the campaigning by the Exclusive Brethren against Labour and the Green Party.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Helen Clark said one of the key purposes behind the bill was "to get the hollow men and the secret money out of politics".
"I think what has happened in the bill, with anonymous donations, is one of the biggest areas of progress we've ever seen in electoral law in New Zealand, because it will largely bust open anonymous giving."
It limits parties to taking $240,000 in any three-year election cycle, and prevents anonymous donations being filtered through trusts to disguise the real donors.
The changes will also limit anonymous donations directly to parties to $1000 and require any anonymous donations of more than $1000 to be sent to the Electoral Commission to pass on to the party in question.
Helen Clark said it remained to be seen whether the new laws would put people off donating to political parties.
She said a complete ban would require some state funding of parties.
Coalition for Open Government spokesman Steven Price said the restrictions on anonymous donations should be tightened further to stop all anonymous donations of more than $1000 - a stance the Green Party is also calling for.
