Campaign finance transparency

Yesterday Stuff published a piece about fundraising and election costs for the mayoral candidates. I was pleased to see the bit about mine was very on brand...

Mayoral candidate Jenny Condie is not far behind [another candidate's fundraising] and provided an extensive breakdown of her funders.

Here's that extensive breakdown I sent them. (They didn't seem to want me to break down the spending into more detail, but I did offer!)

1. List of donors

Alves Family Trust, $10,000, Accountant (retired)

Paul & Grace Dunmore, $2,500, Professor (retired)

Chipmunks campaign launch fundraiser, $495

Anonymous, $50

Teacher, $10

Operations Manager, $50

Illustrator, $825 (services donated)

I have also had mates rates on my website and some of the videos the campaign made, but I don't yet know the full value of those, sorry.

2. Campaign spending

Signage $5227

Online $1131

Events $908

Creative $1669

Brochures (incl delivery) $6489

Total advertising $15426

Again due to mates rates on website and video production these figures are lower than they will be when I file the return after the election. I just don't have the information about the equivalent market rate for the work that was done yet, because of the short notice.

3. Anonymous donations

I received one anonymous donation of $50. I was having dinner at a restaurant and got chatting to the couple sitting next to us. The man gave me a $50 cash donation as he left. I don't know his name.

It's surprisingly difficult to receive anonymous donations. Any online transaction from a bank account or credit card provides you with the account name automatically. I looked into it when I was putting together my donations policy as a way to avoid conflicts of interest, because you can't be influenced by donors if you genuinely don't know who they are. The only ways to be genuinely anonymous are if the donor buys a Pressie card and use it to donate online, or they give you cash without any name. For political parties, the Electoral Commission has a way for donations to be made anonymously through them, but that doesn't work for local candidates.