National leader Christopher Luxon in front of MPs and candidates during his speech at the party's annual conference at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
National leader Christopher Luxon in front of MPs and candidates during his speech at the party's annual conference at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
An Auckland businessman has donated $500,000 to the National Party in what is one of the largest - if not the largest - individual donations in the country’s recent history, exceeding all large donations the Labour Party has received this year combined.
It continues a record-breaking fundraising blitz for the National Party, with reported coffers in large donations to close to $1.3 million for the year - nearly three times the takings of Labour at about $458,000.
The Act Party has also been raking in the cash in recent days, receiving $150,000 on Thursday alone in three individual donations.
In an election year, donations exceeding $20,000 need to be reported within 10 days, while smaller donations must be listed in annual returns. Labour typically receives a large number of smaller donations, which are collated and reported annually.
In January, the Herald reported National had received an “unprecedented” $2.3m from 24 wealthy donors last year, largely thanks to Bennett’s fundraising blitz that tapped rich listers, including New Zealand’s wealthiest man, Graeme Hart, for as much as $250,000 each.
Overall the party brought in $5.1m in donations last year, 10 times Labour’s total in what was also believed to be a record annual intake.
Warren Lewis, managing director of Fairview Metal Industries and a motorsports enthusiast, made the $500,000 donation to National in what is believed to be the largest-ever individual donation to the party. National has not been able to immediately find a larger donation in its records, but cannot rule out a bequest in the past.
Lewis told the Herald it was a “personal matter” and he did not wish to comment further.
He said he was “obviously” a National supporter and liked what leader Christopher Luxon had been doing with the party.
Auckland businessman Warren Lewis is also a keen motorsport enthusiast. Photo / Getty Images
The donation was a result of former National MP Paula Bennett’s ongoing fundraising efforts for the party.
This was noted in the annual report distributed at National’s recent conference, which also noted that the healthy state of its coffers had allowed it to set up a campaign team earlier than usual.
National Party president Sylvia Wood said they were hugely appreciative of the contribution.
“We’re incredibly grateful for this donation to help run a strong Party Vote campaign to elect a National Government on October 14. We also appreciate the thousands of smaller donors who’ve helped us fundraise a similar amount through this year’s President’s Appeal.”
Labour Party campaign manager Hayden Munro said he was confident the party would be able to raise enough to run a “very competitive campaign”.
He said the party had never relied on “mega donors” but rather “ordinary Kiwis who donate what they can when they can”.
It comes as the Greens last week overtook Labour in large donations this year after $50,000 from Hollywood megastar James Cameron, amassing just shy of $500,000, while Labour has received about $458,000 in donations above $20,000 according to the Electoral Commission.
Both parties are dwarfed by National, New Zealand First and Act, with the latter raising $1.305m already this year in big donations.
Recent large donations to the Act Party include a $50,000 donation this month from Zuru toy company co-founder Nick Mowbray, who made a separate $100,000 donation earlier in the year. Mowbray also donated $250,000 to National last year.
National this year has received $1.233m in large donations.
Close to two-thirds of that was donated this month, with almost $300,000 being declared to the Electoral Commission in two days last week and another $500,000 this week - about a month after the party released its President’s Appeal, encouraging supporters to donate.
Other recent 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.
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.
