Maria Slade, at the NBR, interviewed the man who donated $500,000 to the National Party:
Warren Lewis, owner of FMI Building Innovations, is about as unassuming a bloke as you'll meet. . .
Lewis' building solutions group employs 300 staff over two sites in Auckland and Canterbury, and services a network of 60 authorised door and window fabricators. . .
Election rules require that Lewis' $500,000 contribution to the National Party last month had to be immediately announced, thrusting him reluctantly into the limelight.
Lewis has never made a political donation before, nor is he politically active in any other way.
His contribution also has nothing to do with smoothing the way for his own business endeavours.
Rather, the 57-year-old wishes to use his money on behalf of other less well-resourced New Zealanders who feel, as he does, that the country needs to take a path back to unity.
"We have so many issues that need to be dealt with, from childcare to child poverty, education, health, police, then all the way up to climate change, and simply I believe that with separatism, achieving those things is going to take three times as long and cost three times as much money," he says.
"I believe what's best for all New Zealanders is for our political leaders to reunite New Zealand, to allow us to more economically and more quickly deal with the issues that everybody's promising to deal with.
"And at this year's election I believe National, and particularly Mr Luxon, are best placed to achieve that."
Lewis bought his father Peter's Timaru-based business, then known as Fairview Metal Industries, 20 years ago, and set about creating a vertically integrated building systems and materials supplier.
A setback Peter Lewis suffered in 1968 resonates with his son to this day.
The steel plant was destroyed in an electrical fire, so Lewis senior pitched tents in the nearby paddock and worked all through winter to keep the business going.
'No matter what I face, I always benchmark it back against 'have I been burned to the ground? Do I have to run the business under canvas in a sheep paddock?' and I always come back to, 'well if Dad can do that, what is it that I can't do?'," Warren Lewis says. . .
So, this donation that's hit the headlines – are you a longtime donor to the National Party?
No. I'm not a member of any political party, I haven't made a donation before, and I wished to make a donation at this election on behalf of a lot of New Zealanders that I feel would like a change from separatism back to unity.
In the past I've voted centre-left, centre-right, and for a minority party. I use my vote for what I believe is best for all New Zealand, not what's necessarily best for me personally. And I believe what's best for New Zealand is we need to reunite. We have so many issues that need to be dealt with, from childcare to child poverty, education, health, police, then all the way up to climate change, and I believe that with separatism, achieving those things is going to take three times as long and cost three times as much money.
I believe what's best for all New Zealanders is for our political leaders to reunite New Zealand, to allow us to more economically and more quickly deal with the issues that everybody's promising to deal with. And at this year's election I believe National and particularly Chris Luxon are best placed to achieve that.
Half a million dollars is a lot of money – what motivated you to feel quite so strongly this time?
The day I die I don't want to leave my children a separatist New Zealand. Take Three Waters. It's been overtaken by the co-governance issue, and I don't believe most New Zealanders actually understand whether or not the principles behind it are good or bad for New Zealand. And I don't believe that there has been robust discussion on whether disempowering local governments is good or bad.
I've always tried to fly under the radar, but I do feel that I'm at the stage in life where I want to give back. This is a way of giving back on behalf of a whole lot of New Zealanders that I believe would like to see New Zealand reunited but may not be in a position to do so. And unfortunately, I was aware that it would come at the cost of being identified. . . .
The only thing I asked for before I made the donation was to meet Mr Luxon personally. It wasn't because I wanted to have my say, or because I wanted him to have his say. It was simply, being born and bred in Timaru, I wanted to look the man in the eye and shake his hand and judge whether or not I felt in my heart that he was the right man for the job.
He passed the Warren Lewis sniff test. . .
The left, and several political commentators, would prefer political parties to be taxpayer funded, using the ill-founded excuse that donations buy influence.
The irony is that if there's any buying of influence it's on the left. The large sums of money, and people power during campaigns, that unions give Labour and other left wing parties does buy influence.
The so-called Fair Pay Agreements that Labour has brought in are payback to unions.
But many give to political parties for unselfish and altruistic reasons, as Robin Grieve explains:
In a recent opinion piece, Herald senior writer Simon Wilson challenged National and Act party donors to prove that their donations were not motivated by their desire to pay less tax. His implication being that they were.
As a former member of the Act party board and having met many of these donors, I can say that Wilson's characterisation of them is unfair, offensive even.
The notion that their donation is motivated by a selfish desire to pay less tax ignores the fact that no person is an island, they will have family and friends who pay tax. Their genuine concern for the plight of all New Zealanders was also obvious to me in the discussions I had with them for this article.
Likewise, Wilson's characterisation of them ignores the fact that these donors will have concerns and opinions on any number of areas in which government policy has an impact, not just tax.
A higher standard of living for all New Zealanders, a world-class health system, a world-leading educational system, safe streets, a sound democracy where everyone is valued and respected equally, and where freedom of expression was paramount, were the most common desires of the National and Act donors I spoke to for this article. These are the reasons they gave me for making their donation and none of them mentioned tax.
Some had more specific concerns and one such donor is Chris Reeve, who is a donor to both National and Act. His latest donation to Act was motivated by his desire to help the party with a private members bill to repeal legislation that has led to children in the care of Oranga Tamariki being ripped away from the only stable and loving family they have ever known.
For the Government, the emotional harm these children suffer when it tears them away from their families is not a concern, it seems. For Reeve it is, and he is prepared to use his money to help these children by getting this abuse stopped.
Helping a party, or parties, that promote policies you support is not buying influence. The policies attract support which is very different from money influencing policy.
Reeve started out as a shearer who became a sharemilker and then a farmer when he was able to buy a farm in Kaikohe by borrowing 110 per cent of the farm's value. He later sold it and bought land in Waiheke which he subdivided.
He now has a wide range of investments. He has a different life now to when he started, which he recognises with quiet philanthropy, with money put into schools in the Far North and around Bay of Plenty, and many other charities. His background is hard work and long hours, setting goals and taking risks.
Reeve, like many other donors, is also concerned that his grandchildren will not be able to find the freedom to succeed and prosper in the same way he did. He has 10 of them and so it is a big concern for him.
Reeve and the other donors to Act and National are the type of people who see the growing need for more welfare and more state housing as a sign that as a country we are on the wrong track. They want more than a government that believes all problems can be solved by taking more money off one group of people in tax and giving it to others, either to subsidise the cost of something or prop up their income.
They want a government that is aspirational for New Zealand and encourages success and strives for a more prosperous nation. These donors believe in the power of human endeavour and enterprise. A country where these are the virtues we encourage is their vision.
They realise that the current government, and the coalition of chaos that we'd get with Labour shackled to the Green and Maori Parties and maybe NZ First as well couldn't deliver that.
Nothing could be further from the truth than to characterise these donors as selfish pursuers of low taxes, was a common refrain I heard from the people I spoke to who have raised funds for Act and National.
The view of these fundraisers was the same I'd formed after talking to many donors over the many years I was involved with Act and more recently for this article. The people who are donating to National and Act do so because they care and they want to help make New Zealand a better place for all. Their philanthropy and benevolence are not something they shout from the rooftops. Most, for that reason, did not want to be quoted for this article and Reeve was reluctant but agreed because he felt it was another way to help his country.
It is to National and Act that they donate because they see more hope for a more prosperous and more equal New Zealand in the values these parties support.
These people are philanthropists. They want the country and its people to do far better and regard National and Act as the parties most likely to do that.
They're not buying influence, they are donating to parties whose aspirations and values best match theirs.
Electoral law requires parties to declare donations :
In their 2022 annual returns, parties must report the details of:
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- donations, contributions and loans over $15,000
- anonymous donations over $1,500
- overseas donations and contributions over $50.
Parties must keep accurate records of all donations and loans. For donations and loans under these amounts, parties must report the total number and amount of them to us in their annual return.
From 1 January 2023 parties will have the following new obligations to report in their annual returns due by 30 April 2024, and onwards:
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- the name and address of donors for donations and contributions over $5,000
- the number and total donations under $1,500 that are not made anonymously
- separately reporting on the total amount of monetary and in-kind donations
Any donations over $20,00 must be reported immediately.
This gives a reasonable level of transparency.
Calls to reduce the amount of money individuals or entities can give without it becoming public and to reduce the amount when donations must be made public come regularly.
The current threshold of $5,000 is low. The idea that $5,000 could buy influence is ludicrous.
It might reflect the venality of those calling for the threshold to be lowered and is almost certainly being used as a means to the end of taxpayer funding of political parties.
Political parties are voluntary organisations. If they can't get sufficient funds from members and supporters they need to ask themselves why.
Failing to fund themselves from the private a sector does not provide grounds for seeking funds from the public purse.
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