Six months out from the election, one party is dominating on the donation front.
National amassed by far the biggest war chest of all the parties last year, with more than $6.2 million in donations received across 2025. According to the newly released Electoral Commission numbers, that total comprised 20,000 separate donations of under $5,000, topped off with 148 different donors supplying five grand or more.
Act brought in the second-biggest haul in donations last year, but it was a fraction of National’s kitty: $2.44m. Labour came in a close third at $2.40m, with the Greens and New Zealand First trailing on $1.85m and $1.36m respectively.
National’s 2025 donation haul surpassed its 2024 total of just under $4.9m, but didn’t reach the heights of the last election year, 2023, when the party raked in a record-breaking sum of almost $10.4m in donations. This year’s kitty is looking pretty healthy too, though only donations of $20,000 or more have been made public – in an election year, they must be disclosed within 20 days.
Combining the totals from 2023, 2024 and 2025 and adding the $20,000-plus donations from 2026 so far, National is streets ahead of its peers, with a haul of $22.4m. Removing the 2023 figures and just looking at this parliamentary term doesn’t change the overall state of play much either – National remains well in the lead.
The biggest donors
So, to use a phrase favoured by the National Party, who’s spraying around the cash bazooka? The biggest donation to any party in 2025 was made to National by the late Robert John Wares shortly before he died – Wares was a Nelson philanthropist who had long been involved with the party, and donated $210,000.
National’s second-biggest benefactor was Brian Cartmell, who gave $201,993.91 in three amounts across the year and was also Act and New Zealand First’s biggest donor, giving $200,000 and $204,999 to those parties respectively. This year, somewhat surprisingly, Cartmell – a Queenstown-based tech entrepreneur – donated $100,000 to The Opportunity Party. It’s the only donation of $100k or more Opportunity received in 2025-26, while Act can count 10, National nine, NZ First four, Labour three and the Greens two.
No one else came close to Cartmell’s $700,000-plus outlay, though other donors to share the love among parties include Sistema Plastics founder Sir Brendan Lindsay, who gave $100,000 to National and $50,000 to Act last year, then threw a cheeky $100k in NZ First’s direction in 2026. Another Rich List regular, the Huljich family – via its private equity firm Christopher & Banks – gave $145,000 to Act last year, which in 2026 has been topped up with an extra $25,000. NZ First also got $25k, which brings Christopher & Banks’ outlay to date to $195,000, a touch under the sum its director Peter Huljich was fined after his 2025 conviction for insider trading.
Trevor Farmer, a Rich Lister property developer, donated $100,000 to Act and $50,000 to NZ First in 2025. As we reported last month, GMP Environmental and Michael Sullivan have spread $300k and $250k respectively among the three coalition parties this year, but they made no donations in 2025.
Phillip Mills of the Les Mills gym empire donated $163,200 to Labour and $50,000 to the Greens in 2025. This year, he’s topped that up with another $100,000 and $50,000 to each party respectively, plus given $100,000 to Opportunity. Other big donors to the left-leaning parties include Wellington investor and entrepreneur Robert Morgan and Nelson businessman Michael Lookman, who in 2025 gave $132,000 and $100,000 to the Greens respectively. Auckland lawyer Claudia Mills, meanwhile, donated $117,349 to Labour last year, and this year has topped it up with another $60,000.
