Two people are facing charges after a Serious Fraud Office investigation into the NZ First Foundation. "No party member has been implicated or charged by the SFO," NZ First leader Winston Peters told reporters. Video / NZ Herald
NZ First's efforts to gag the Serious Fraud Office until after the election was struck down because transparency outweighed the "inconvenience of the announcement" to the party.
Nor was there any evidence of the SFO following an improper process, according to Justice Matthew Palmer in the Auckland High Court, who struck down NZ First's judicial review.
"There is no evidence before me that the [SFO] director's decision to issue the public statement was influenced by political considerations, or that the timeframe she announced for the investigation's completion was set because of the election," Justice Palmer said.
He conceded there could be a negative impact on NZ First's electoral prospects.
"However, I consider there is a significant public interest in the New Zealand voting public being informed during an election campaign about criminal charges of serious fraud against people or organisations related to political parties.
"Ultimately, I consider the public interest in transparency outweighs the inconvenience of the announcement to NZ First."
Yesterday the SFO announced it had filed a charge a week ago of 'Obtaining by Deception' against two people following its probe into the NZ First Foundation.
The defendants have interim name suppression and cannot be identified at this time, but the SFO said they weren't a NZ First Minister, sitting MP, or candidate in the upcoming election, or a member of staff of a current party member.
NZ First leader Winston Peters told Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB this morning that he didn't agree with Justice Palmer's decision and there appeared to be "one law for NZ First and there's different applications of law for everyone else".
He also clarified that they sought an injunction as they had been contacted by the SFO that a press statement was imminent but it didn't tell them what it was going to say.
"That's why we went for an injunction, we wanted to know how on earth are you going to properly do this without even telling us what you're going to say.
"And, what it said they were going to say was, we're going to lay these two charges and leave it up in the air for you to work out who it's going to be.
"We've proven our point, we took them to court and they were forced to change their press statement to exonerate the party and make it clear that every member of the party and MP and everybody in the establishment was exonerated."
When asked by Hosking if there was any recourse if the two people were found not guilty but NZ First had already lost the election, Peters said there wasn't.
"That's the problem, that's unfortunately how our laws differ to other country's laws ... I want New Zealanders to know before the election that it is just designed where malice is behind it and the difference in treatment between me and my party and the other parties."
It comes a day after NZ First polled at 1 per cent in the latest 1 News Colmar Brunton poll, well below the 5 per cent needed to return to Parliament without an electorate seat.
Peters lashed out at the timing of the announcement - one day before the start of overseas voting, four days before advanced voting, and less than three weeks until election day.
He compared it to Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and James Comey, who reopened the FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server two weeks before the presidential election.
"The timing of its decision to lay charges against the foundation constitutes a James Comey-level error of judgment," Peters said.
"It's an appalling intrusion in a period when the people begin to think seriously about the shape of their next government."
He called the SFO announcement an exoneration of the party, and would not be drawn on whether he knew the defendants or if they were former party members, saying the matter was now before the court.
He compared the treatment of his party with the SFO investigation into two $100,000 donations to the National Party - where four people including Jami-Lee Ross have been charged.
"We know they were provided significantly more serious information about the pernicious foreign influence campaign that penetrated the National Party. Yet only a portion of those electoral breaches resulted in charges. Why?"
A High Court decision said the public interest in the SFO charges relating to the NZ First Foundation outweighed any potentially negative impact on the NZ First party. Photo / Peter Meecham
He also compared the SFO's timeline with its ongoing probes into donations to the Labour Party in 2017, announced in July, and to the mayoral campaigns of former Labour MPs Phil Goff in Auckland and Lianne Dalziel in Christchurch, announced in March.
"How is that fair? It is not."
The party's lawyers would now pursue a declaration in the High Court that the SFO had abused its statutory powers and had acted unreasonably, Peters said.
Unreasonable and accusations of unfavourable treatment compared to other parties were also part of NZ First's failed legal case to gag the SFO from announcing the charges.
The SFO had wanted to make the announcement on September 23, but this was delayed after NZ First's judicial review, and then its appeal of Palmer's decision.
The application was granted, but the party dropped the appeal yesterday.
Scrutiny of the foundation has centred over whether it had loaned or provided money to the party for purposes that benefited the party and its MPs, and if so, whether they had been properly declared.
According to documents reviewed by Radio NZ, donors contributed about $500,000 to the foundation between April 2017 and August 2019.
During that period, the foundation reportedly spent more than $425,000 on campaign advertising expenses, political consultants' fees, renting and setting up a campaign HQ in Wellington, and running the party's website.
The party's returns show that the foundation was listed as having made a loan of $73,000 to NZ First for 2017, $76,622 for 2018 and $44,923 for 2019.
In February, the Electoral Commission said it believed the foundation "has received donations which should have been treated as party donations for the New Zealand First Party".
The matter was referred to police, and then the SFO.
