Two big political donors backing opposite sides explain why they’ve given over a million dollars to different parties

What do rich donors expect for their contributions? We ask two big donors who give to opposite sides of the spectrum why they donate to politics.Donations of $20,000 or more to political parties are on track to reach record levels. With more than 50 days until election day, donations declared by the Electoral Commission are already at $6.8 million compared to 2023's $7m total.Sixty percent of this year's total comes from 21 donors who have given $100,000 or more.What, if anything, do the larger donors get that the smaller ones don't? And why do they give so much?Although their names are publicly recorded by the Electoral Commission, very few will be interviewed about why they donate.RNZ approached 12 for an interview. Three agreed.Phillip Mills, outgoing managing director of Les Mills International, has donated more than a million dollars to mostly left and centre-left parties since 2008. This year he's donated $250,000.Craig Greenlees and his wife have donated more than $650,000 to National and ACT combined over a number of years. The family is in the kiwifruit business and Greenlees is a former board chair of Zespri. This year, he and his wife have donated $254,000.Alan Wilderland, a tech entrepreneur, has given $221,160 so far to Opportunity - he spoke with RNZ for an earlier story.Phillip Mills: 'Have they acted to the degree that we want?'Phillip Mills said he didn't want to catastrophise, but he predicted the country faced 100 years of storms, fires and droughts. He wanted climate action, and was putting money into advancing ideas he thinks will make a difference.The outgoing managing director of Les Mills International estimated he'd given about $20 million to environmental causes over the years.Included in this total were donations to political parties, which RNZ calculated to be more than $1 million, since 2008. These spanned the political spectrum - Mills said he gave to ACT "back in the Roger Douglas days" and to National under John Key, though there was no record of this as a donation over the threshold for public declaration.This year, he'd given Labour and Opportunity $100,000 each and the Greens $50,000. He hinted more donations might be forthcoming before the polls open.The donation to National was a one-off, he said, claiming National "didn't get it"."We were unable to make any kind of progress with our agenda with them, and I didn't make another donation to them at that time, and we started donating regularly back then to Greens and Labour."The agenda he was trying to progress and his overriding motivation for donating was concern about the effects of climate change. His view of the future was bleak."There's been enough damage done that things will get worse. We will have more storms, we will have more droughts, more fires, more floods, probably for the next 100 years."Mills founded the charity Pure Advantage in 2011, this was the main vehicle for his climate action advocacy and labelled itself as "champions for New Zealand's green growth". Warehouse founder Sir Stephen Tindall was also a board member.He reeled off four reasons he believed climate action should be prioritised.They included a move to a low carbon economy, the importance of a clean, green image for exports and tourism, cost-savings from reducing environmental footprints, and finally the cost of climate related catastrophes, which he pointed out cost the country up to an estimated $14.5 billion.When asked if he's trying to save the world, he said he believed people had mixed motivations when donating. There's self-interest and a fear of the future at play too."I think that any business should be in fear of serious economic damage or serious damage in terms of floods and droughts and fires. If we're acting in our own interests, then we should all be worried about those things happening."He believed it would affect his own industry as much as any other."We're running gyms. We're trying to make people healthier and get them exercising and eating better. Climate change is arguably the biggest challenge to all of those things."The amount he gives is relative to the party. He's been interested in the "teal" positioning of Opportunity in the past, but thought the party's chance of getting into parliament was "far-fetched". Now he thinks there was a chance they would get some seats."If we could have three parties who are really supportive of dealing with climate change, and not actively doing things to block it, then that is a crucial thing for New Zealand."He's against what he described as cronyism, saying he would never donate for personal gain and cited the book Why Nations Fail as providing clear examples of cronyism, where mates were given jobs, or advantages.He believed that weakened competition, costs were passed to the public and taxes decreased to a point where health, education, social welfare and the environment deteriorated."I just am morally opposed to the idea that governments should take bribes from certain industries that create benefit to those industries."If people think his donations to the parties he thinks are against cronyism are a form of cronyism: "Guilty as charged," he said.Mills said he'd met the leaders of parties but doesn't put that down to his donations. He's often invited to the same events politicians were because of his profile."I naturally interact with parties, and have had lots of interactions, certainly with the previous generation of party leaders."Are parties more open to hearing his views on climate change because of his financial support?"Yes, they are, but have they acted? Have they acted to the degree that we want?"Despite giving large amounts himself, he felt there was an argument to be made to cap donations."A quick, uninformed answer that I'm going to say. Yeah, sounds like a good idea to really reduce the cap and enforce it strictly. Make sure that we don't, we don't get just the rich people dominating how our country is run."If donations were capped at $30,000 per donor and party, as was recommended in an independent electoral review, he would resort to doing what other environmental groups were doing, making public statements and writing articles.Craig Greenlees: 'They're smooching you because you've given them some money'Craig Greenlees said his family's donations were the best investment he could make for his grandchildren. He and his wife Shayne donated more than $600,000 to National and ACT combined over a number of years. This year, their donation total sat at $254,000."I've grown up watching New Zealand move from being an industrious country, rewarding people who showed enterprise and worked hard, to one that's changed dramatically."He wanted a future with greater productivity that created more value. Part of that means people "turning up for work" and putting effort in."Just values that are instilled by that being the norm, instead of it [being] the allowance of lax, lax behaviour that has come to prevail in New Zealand."Kiwifruit had been part of Greenlees' life since his late twenties. He was a board chair at Zespri and his family owned a kiwifruit orchard. In partnership with another family he also owned a picking and packing store.His wife was a school teacher, and education was a hot topic in the family. The importance of schooling flows through to adulthood, and the economy, he said."You have to actually put the shoulder to the wheel to get a result. When you find that so many children are not attending school, well, what values is that teaching them? Let alone ruining their education. Then when they go try to get a job, and they might even get one - hopefully - then they don't turn up."He'd seen the system change for his own children when NCEA was brought in and seen job applicants unable to do math and read reports.Education Minister Erica Stanford was reversing some of the mistakes he believed had been made over the years. He supported putting walls back into open plan classrooms, introducing what he described as a more specific curriculum and "expecting some standards".He gravitated toward right wing parties but said he had given to Labour's Jan Tinetti in the past. (Tinetti said she didn't recall getting a donation from Greenlees and there was no record of a donation from him to her over the declarable threshold.) She was a local candidate and at the time, he thought she deserved some support. It's not something he would do again, despite getting weekly emails from the Labour Party asking for donations."I feel she only made the education situation worse and left more work for Stanford to fix."Greenlees thought the country would be better off with a right wing government, than left wing. Right wing governments encouraged enterprise, a good education and "are encouraging people to build resilience instead of dependency".Greenlees said he didn't lobby politicians for policies that would benefit the kiwifruit industry although if he had the opportunity to meet them, he shared his views.He'd met Christopher Luxon and David Seymour and spoken to them, but didn't believe he was influenced by them."It's nice, but it's a transactional situation. They're smooching you because you've given them some money and they're nice about it."Because he's a donor, he did think he would have a better chance of securing a meeting if he wanted one, but "let's be realistic, you can have a conversation, but it doesn't mean you get what you want."The pressure from National and ACT to donate was "totally relaxed", with only one request from each party recently.He's "relaxed" about the idea of capping donations, and saw the merit in restricting organisations, like unions and businesses from donating.