It has been revealed that millions of New Zealand taxpayer dollars have been donated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) to Hillary Clinton’s charity, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a non-profit organisation created from the Clinton Foundation with the stated goal to reduce HIV/AIDs in Africa.

An MFAT spokesman confirmed to the NBR that between January 2010 and June 2016, $7.7 million of taxpayer funds had already been donated and another $6 million was to follow, keeping to a pledge to donate $13.7 million made by the government organisation in 2013.

ACT party member David Seymour commented “In a world where New Zealanders can crowdsource to buy a beach, it’s not clear what role there is for the government to collect taxes and contribute it to a global charity which is more than capable of reaching out and raising its own money.”

The big question is, why is our government sending millions of dollars overseas while at the same time cutting funding for crucial services which desperately need the money here in New Zealand?

To fully understand how Clinton charities operate and decide whether a single taxpayer dollar should have been donated, we first need to look at some of the controversies.

Over the past 15 years, the Washington Post can reveal the charities have raised over $2 billion dollars, mainly from big corporates, foreign governments and political donors. Many have called the contributions ‘pay for play’, where powerful donors exchange funds for future political favours. Speeches make up a large part of the revenue stream, with the Clintons earning hundreds of thousands per speech from the likes of big Wall Street banks including Goldman Sachs as revealed by WikiLeaks.