How could you forget $178,394 in campaign contributions? « The Standard

This requires some explanation.

Police have decided not to take any action against National MP David MacLeod for failing to declare $178,394 in election donations. This isn’t the headline news in The Onion.

from Joe Moyle of Radio New Zealand:

Police have decided not to take any action against National MP David MacLeod for concealing $178,394 in donations.

Election Committee The matter has been referred to the police A month ago, the New Plymouth MP revealed what he called an “inadvertent mistake”.

A police spokesperson issued a statement to RNZ on Thursday saying they had “completed their investigation into this matter and no further action will be taken”.

The backbencher initially disclosed donations totaling just $29,268 from seven donors, but later revised that to $207,662 from 24 donors.

In May, McLeod said he believed he File a 2023 tax return onlyand therefore did not disclose the 18 donations he received when he became a candidate last year.

He also failed to disclose a $10,000 donation from 2023, which he said was an unexplained mistake.

And one of the donations he *didn’t* declare might have come from someone who wanted to join the fast-track consent program.

As Russell Norman of Greenpeace:

“One of MacLeod’s undeclared donations came from a major shareholder in seabed mining company TTR, which would likely benefit greatly from the Fast Track Act. The Fast Track process is the only way the company can get its disruptive business off the ground,” Norman said.

“David MacLeod had a significant undeclared conflict of interest while he was chair of the Environment Committee, which oversaw the Fast Track Act. He accepted donations from someone who had a significant financial interest in the passage of the Act, but he unlawfully failed to declare those donations.

“This undisclosed conflict of interest means that MacLeod has undermined the democratic process of considering the bill and he himself could face charges of corrupt conduct. How many submitters against the bill who were never heard by the committee will now wonder if MacLeod was involved in the decision not to be heard?

The police had Three options:

1. He was charged with corrupt conduct by filing a false return knowing that material details were false.
2. It alleges he committed illegal conduct by failing to file a false return, even though he had no intention to conceal the donations and had “taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the information in the return was accurate.”
3. Do nothing.

He filed a false tax return. Filing an amended return would be an admission of that.

When he signed his tax return, I guess he read it. He should have noticed the sentence “Candidate tax returns include any money, goods, or services donated to a candidate or a person acting on behalf of a candidate for use in the candidate’s campaign.” There is no time limit. Contributions in 2022 are included.

Forgetting to mention the $10,000 donation received in 2023 was a mistake in itself. How can he be said to have taken all reasonable steps in the circumstances to ensure that this was disclosed?

The threshold for conviction for corrupt conduct through filing false returns is high.

But how could this not be illegal? The level of incompetence on display here is pretty extreme. How can he be said to have taken all reasonable steps under the circumstances to ensure the information on his return was accurate when he managed to “omit” $178,394 in donations?

This reminds me Prosecution of former Auckland mayor and cabinet minister John Banks Submitting a false voter return.

Kim Dotcom claimed that he donated $50,000 at Banks’ request, that the check was made in Banks’ presence, and that Banks called him a few days later to thank him. Police investigated but declined to prosecute Banks. Accountant Graeme MacReady filed a private lawsuit and the judge ruled that there was enough evidence to proceed. The Attorney General then took over the case. Banks was found guilty, but the conviction was quashed on appeal.

The option of pursuing lesser charges against him – filing a false return and failing to take all steps that were reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that the information in the return was accurate – was lost because of the statute of limitations.

The IPCA considers complaints about the police’s handling of these cases to be important. It is very generous in Refuse to support complaint.

McLeod may have been relieved to hear the news. There’s still time Take the matter to court.

Related articles