The truth is, political parties probably aren’t getting a whole lot more in donations than they have in the past. It’s just that they’re now required to tell us much more about what’s coming in.

For the first time, parties have been required to report on the value of donations they received under $1500 where the donor was known. Previously, they only needed to report on the value of anonymous donations of this value. This new reporting rule has brought to light huge amounts of donation cash which had previously been hidden to the public.

Victoria University of Wellington senior lecturer Max Rashbrooke said the change to require reporting of these smaller donations closed a “baffling loophole” which left people guessing how much parties had in their bank accounts to campaign with.

Rashbrooke said it also put a misconception to bed. “There was always a view that the playing field was a bit more level than it might seem,” he said. “Because it might seem that National out-fundraises Labour massively in the big donations, but the argument was always made that Labour did very well in the small donations.”

In fact, it was National, not Labour, that dominated the small donation rankings in 2023. Out of National’s $10.3m donation total, $4m came from 44,000 smaller donations of less than $1500. Labour raised less than $3m from smaller donations.