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The National Party is asking the Hutt South Labor branch to be candid about the loving deal they have been getting for rent for the past 27 years and whether the party should have declared thousands of dollars in actual donations, which could be subject to disclosure. . rules.
Labor’s Hutt South wing has received good treatment from taxpayers and the local fire union.
Thursday, Stuff it exposed a scheme in which the local Labor Party subleased office space to include MP Ginny Anderson at a cost much higher than what it paid to the original owner, the NZ Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU).
The Parliamentary Service pays the rent for Andersen’s office space, as it does for all MPs. That money goes to the Labor Party, which can pocket the difference as profit for the expenses of its electorate.
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The arrangement, while seemingly unusual, is perfectly legal, and Labor severely denies that it has not declared donations.
Chris Bishop, who represents the National seat, asked Labor for a “please explain.”
“The Hutt South Labor Party needs to explain why they appear to have arranged their affairs for the taxpayer to fund the party to the tune of thousands of dollars per year.”
“The taxpayer funding for the offices is intended to pay the rent, not the rent plus an additional surcharge for the Labor Party,” Bishop said.
Accounts viewed by Stuff show that at least as recently as 2018 and 2019, the NZPFU was charging just $ 1,500 a year for rent, well below the market rate for office space in Petone. A store at 264 Jackson Street, just down the street from Andersen’s office, is currently leasing at $ 18,200 per year.
The NZPFU says the agreement is now out of date, but will not reveal the details of the new agreement.
PINK WOODS / THINGS
Labor MP Ginny Andersen has gotten a good deal at her Hutt South office.
National contends that such a low sum is effectively a donation under New Zealand’s electoral laws.
Election Commission rules, published in the commission’s candidate handbook, say that goods and services received at a discount are treated as donations.
The rules say: “[I]If you get a discount on goods or services from a New Zealand person with a fair market value of more than $ 300, the difference between the market value and the price you pay is a donation. “
Andersen denies that any rent should be treated as a donation, saying the low rate dates back to a “business agreement that workers reached with firefighters in 1993.”
The work has a long association with construction. The party’s owning branch, Labor Party Properties, acquired it in 1977. It was transferred to the Petone branch of the New Zealand Labor Party in 1988.
In 1993, it was sold to the Professional Firefighters Union of New Zealand for $ 80,000, its RV at the time.
Andersen said the low rent was part of a trade agreement negotiated between the NZPFU and the Labor Party when the building was sold. That would mean that the rent is not a donation, but simply part of a business agreement between a tenant and a landlord.
“The continued provision of office space for Labor was part of a business deal when Labor sold the building to the Firefighters Union in the early 1990s.
“This provision was reflected in the sale price of the building. As such, that trade agreement does not constitute a donation, ”Andersen said.
While the electoral law on donations in kind is mostly black and white, the original sale of the building in 1993 complicates matters.
If years and years of low income were part of the original sales agreement, entered into on a commercial basis, it may not need to be disclosed.
Andrew Geddis, a law professor at the University of Otago, said it was unclear what the support agreements negotiated as part of the 1993 sale of the building would have on donation disclosure requirements today.
“It depends on whether we are talking about the fair market value of the immediate transaction, the rent that the candidate or the party has paid to the firefighters, or if you see it as part of a larger transaction going back to the sale. of the building, ”Geddis said.
He said the law was “ambiguous” on this point.
“It can be read either way,” he said.
“The only real question would be whether the sale of the Labor Party building to the union was a genuine arm’s-length transaction or whether the union paid as much as they would have paid for the building anyway and added a benefit to the party which was to say ‘ We’ll give you this cheap. ‘
If the cheap rent should have been revealed, it could mean that Labor has failed to report thousands of dollars in donations, dating back years and affecting multiple elections.
The broader political question for the Labor Party is whether the question goes beyond a single electorate. The party owns or rents properties throughout the country.
