Fewer political donations from big business - Labour

Big business donations to political parties are drying up while wealthy individuals are putting more cash into election campaigns, the Labour Party says.

Figures released yesterday by the Electoral Commission showed donations to Labour and National were well down on previous years.

The Electoral Finance Act, since repealed, created more transparency around donations but Labour's secretary, Mike Smith, said today he didn't think it had caused the donation drop off.

"We certainly didn't get as much from the corporate sector," he said today on Radio New Zealand.

"They've been in decline for some considerable period of time. What we did see was donations from wealthy individuals with a particular political point of view."

Mr Smith said his party and National received big donations from individuals.

The Electoral Commission releases details of donations over $10,000.

The National Party declared donations of $207,000 in 2008, compared to $1.8 million in 2005.

This included $30,000 from its leader John Key and $77,000 from supporters who made their donations anonymously through the Electoral Commission.

The protected disclosures regime allow individuals to donate up to $36,000 through the commission and not have their names made public

Labour declared $420,000 in donations in 2008, down from $931,000 in 2005.

It received only $9000 through the protected disclosures regime.

Mr Key said today that he had no information on why donations to National would be down, saying that he kept himself distanced from that part of the party's affairs.

ACT declared a total of $315,906 for the year with businessman Alan Gibbs donating $200,000 and newly elected list MP John Boscawen giving $101,000.

The Greens received $184,962.

The Vela family business was the biggest donor to New Zealand First with a $100,000 donation and it also gave the same amount to Labour.

- NZPA