Elegant Bribery and its Emergence in New Zealand Electoral Donations

Abstract

Following investigations by the Serious Fraud Office into political party donations to the National Party and the Labour Party, the Crown laid charges which alleged that the defendants adopted a fraudulent device, trick or stratagem to deceive by providing sham names of purported donors below the NZD 15,000 disclosure threshold in the Electoral Act 1993, amounting to an offence of obtaining by deception under s 240(1)(a) of the Crimes Act 1961.
On 5 October 2022, his Honour Gault J delivered his judgment in the case of R v Zhang, finding the defendants not guilty of one of the alleged deceptions. Gault J, whilst finding that the Crown's case was not made out for this particular charge, has highlighted how artworks can be used to facilitate political corruption and bribery. He further highlighted how the unique characteristics of art can provide defendants with a foundation from which they can raise successful defences against allegations of corruption, bribery and fraud. Accordingly, the remainder of this article shall focus on this issue, and more specifically the phenomenon of "elegant bribery", in the hope that this can raise awareness of how vulnerable New Zealand could be to this specific form of corruption.