Hollywood director James Cameron donates to Greens as party surges ahead of Labour

The Green Party is outstripping the Labour Party in big donations this year with less than four months until the general election, helped by one of Hollywood’s heavyweights.

James Cameron, The Terminator, Titanic, True Lies and Avatar director who has a property near Featherston, has recently contributed $50,000 to the Greens’ war chest alongside his wife, Suzy. That’s in addition to another $50,000 donation from long-time Greens supporter and former Xena: Warrior Princess star Lucy Tapert, also known as Lucy Lawless, this month.

It’s led to the Greens overtaking Labour in large donations this year, amassing just shy of $500,000, while Labour has received about $458,000 in donations above $20,000 according to the Electoral Commission.

It somewhat conflicts with Green MP Golriz Ghahraman’s failed member’s bill that sought to introduce a $35,000 annual limit on political donations.

Both parties are dwarfed by National, New Zealand First and Act, with the latter raising $1.15 million already this year in big donations.

It comes as recent polls continue to suggest a narrow contest between potential National-Act and Labour-Greens-Te Pati Māori coalitions ahead of the election.

A Green Party spokesperson didn’t answer questions from the Herald about whether anyone from the party had approached Cameron prior to the donation.

Film director James Cameron is financially supporting the Green Party ahead of this year's election. Photo / Getty Images

They did, however, say people donated to the Greens because they wanted a Government that would take “stronger action on climate action, protect nature and provide everyone with enough to live on”.

“We rely on the support of thousands of people all around Aotearoa whose donations - both large and small - help push our campaign forward,” the spokesperson said.

Whether or not to accept “significant donations” was considered by the party’s governance committee, they said.

Representatives of Cameron did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment.

Cameron’s donation was a development in the relationship between the director and the party, in light of former co-leader Russell Norman’s criticism of selling land to foreign buyers following Cameron’s 2012 announcement he would spend millions to purchase more than 1000 hectares of land in South Wairarapa.

Tapert’s support for the Greens led to her attending party events and joining The Child Poverty Action Group’s hikoi in Auckland in 2020.

Lucy Tapert pictured on the final night of filming Xena Warrior Princess in 2001. Photo / Richard Robinson

The former Xena star said at the time: “I’m really concerned that the only growth going on in New Zealand is the growth of this underclass of hungry children, who become lacklustre students, who grow up and become disenfranchised, angry grown-ups.”

Labour’s campaign chairwoman Megan Woods wasn’t worried about the Green’s recent run of donations, saying her sole focus was on donations to her own party.

“I’m comfortable that we’re going to raise what we need to run a very competitive election campaign,” she told the Herald.

“Labour’s never had a campaign chest that’s been filled by the big end of town by big donations, we’re not a party that relies on the big donors.”

She cited Labour’s success over National in the 2020 election, despite fewer large donations, as evidence financial resources didn’t determine election results.

“I don’t think you can ever use donations and large donations as any kind of proxy of how an election will fall.”

Labour held an art auction last weekend. While she didn’t attend, Woods said she understood it went well with respect to funds raised.

Labour Party campaign chair Megan Woods isn't concerned about donations to other parties. Photo / Mark Mitchell

National this year had received about $700,000 in large donations. However, more than 40 per cent of that was donated this month with almost $300,000 being declared to the Electoral Commission in two days this week - about a month after the party released its President’s Appeal, encouraging supporters to donate.

Donors included rich-lister property developer Trevor Farmer ($50,000), who had already donated $100,000 last year.

Farmer had also given $200,000 to the Act Party and a further $50,000 to New Zealand First, seemingly the first time he’d made a large donation to the Winston Peters-led party.

Another $100,000 was given to National from Christopher & Banks LTD - a company directed by Christopher Huljich. Former National and Act Minister John Banks was also a director of the company for a brief time between 2011 and 2012.

Philanthropists Brendan and Jo Lindsay also donated $100,000 to National this month. The Lindsays shot onto the NBR’s Rich List after the $660m sale of their plastic container company Sistema in 2016 and founded the Lindsay Foundation to give most of their money away.

A further $51,000 appeared to have come from Jeffery Douglas, son of the late Sir Graeme Douglas, who founded Douglas Pharmaceuticals.

In January, the Herald reported National had received an “unprecedented” $2.3m from 24 wealthy donors last year, largely thanks to a fundraising blitz from former deputy leader Paula Bennett who tapped rich listers, including New Zealand’s wealthiest man, for as much as $250,000 each last year.

Former National Party deputy leader Paula Bennett coordinated a fundraising blitz for the party last year. Photo / NZME

It was not clear how much of this funding was spent in 2022, and how much had been put aside for campaigning this year.

National Party president Sylvia Wood said the party was “very pleased” by the show of support.

“We hope to invest as much as we can in our party vote campaign to change the government, in accordance with the Electoral Commission’s expense caps.”

New Zealand First’s bid to return to Parliament was being well-assisted by wealthy donors, receiving about $517,000 in large donations this year.

Despite Act being ahead of all other parties on large donations, party leader David Seymour made further pleas for donations at the party’s conference in Auckland earlier this month.

He told supporters that while the party’s “fixed costs” had been covered, an additional $1m was needed to “bypass the media’s editorial decisions and the tech companies’ algorithms” with paid advertising.

Act’s party donations return for 2022, filed with the Electoral Commission, showed it raised just over $2m in those 12 months - $1.2m of that was made up of donations of more than $15,000.

Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.