A former secretary of the National Party says he repeatedly asked then MP Jami-Lee Ross to provide information about the individual donors behind one large donation to the party but the information was not forthcoming.
John Dixon QC says Jami-Lee Ross was the party insider who was in constant contact with the true donor, wealthy businessman Yikun Zhang. Photo: RNZ / Simon Rogers
It is the third week of a trial over anonymous donations to the country's two biggest political parties in which seven people, including Ross, are defending charges related to electoral fraud.
For the National Party, the Crown alleges two donations made to the party in 2017 and 2018 were split into smaller amounts among sham donors to avoid triggering the $15,000 disclosure limit, and hide the true donor.
The High Court in Auckland today has seen a series of emails and phone threads from the party secretary at the time, Greg Hamilton.
Hamilton, appearing as a witness, said he asked Ross to provide the information a number of times.
"I basically went on to say that we're happy to follow up and do what we need to do and yes if we can't do that then we might have to give the money back to the particular donors whose name and address we can't verify.
"I guess the sentiment of what I was saying is this is a bit silly, can we please just get the info, help me do that."
He was referring to a text exchange between the pair, shown to the court, which Ross had released to the media in October 2018 when the party was engulfed in controversy concerning the donations.
In the text exchange Ross contacted the party secretary about a request he had received to "track down the individual donors (all under $15k)".
Ross then said he was unable to do that, and that it was the first time he had been asked to do that - "this appears new to me, is this a sticking point?".
In response, Hamilton said the party was required by law to provide names and addresses "in this case many of the addresses provided don't match what is on the electoral role".
If the party was to track the people down it would need phone numbers for the donors, he texted, and then asked Ross if a particular organisation had pulled the donations together.
"It was Simon Bridges that arranged the donation, or group of donations,' replied Ross, "I was just tasked with collecting it".
He suggested that if there were any problems he could contact the bank and return the money.
"Maybe, but that would be a shame," Hamilton said, and that he would talk to whoever he needed to "line the donors up" with the electoral roll.
"Best we do that now as opposed to when audit takes place on the annual return," he said.
Ross claimed he told the police he had collected a $100,000 donation and under the orders of then party leader Simon Bridges broke it into smaller amounts so the donor would not have to be declared publicly - a breach of electoral law.
Bridges denies all of the claims made by his former MP and will appear as a witness in the trial.
In his opening statements, John Dixon QC said Ross was the party insider who was in constant contact with the true donor, wealthy businessman Yikun Zhang.
"The Crown says he knew that Yikun Zhang was the true donor and yet he provided the National Party with the list of names of the transmitters, people who were the sham donors, and represented to the National Party that they were the donors and the amounts that they were donating were the true amounts of the donation when he knew it to be otherwise," Dixon said.
The trial continues.