The debate around the topic of election interference reached a boiling point recently with the release of Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Work, a follow-up to the 2014 book Dirty Politics. In the book, which primarily focuses on the movements of Jordan Williams’s Taxpayers’ Union, Hager alleges that ZURU CEO and Billionaire Nick Mowbray and his father Harry Mowbray were undeclared donors of the TPU and had been seen scurrying about the TPU offices. This is a claim which Mowbray junior has denied, stating with veneered smugness in a tweet on the 23rd of September that “[…]I’ve never donated to them. But I’m going to now.”
Just a couple days later, it’s emerged that the father & son duo have been promoting a voting strategy that would exploit the MMP’s overhang system to reform a strong right-coalition government. The strategy encourages voters to tick National for their electorate and then give their party vote to either ACT or NZFirst.
The strategy was called “The opposite of clever” by former Prime Minister John Key at National’s campaign launch event, adding that “It means […] National’s […] talented ministers would be replaced by someone you have never heard of.”
Of course, Key and the cohort of current and former National MPs would very much prefer all that were in attendance that night to go two ticks blue.
Nick Mowbray, the richest person in the country, has (publicly) donated at least 550,000 to ACT and National in recent cycles.
The Greens have proposed a policy which would make it illegal for companies to donate to political parties and introduce a cap on what any one individual can donate to a party or politician.
