According to Labour Party financial accounts made public, the party’s large 2005 election campaign expenditure pushed the party significantly into deficit, which is now running at $600,000. The party probably hasn’t been in such poor financial state since 1988, following its huge 1987 re-election campaign spending.
Apart from calling for more state subsidies, the party’s response has been to impose a 10% increase on electorate levies, launch a new Century Fund campaign (hoping to raise $1m a year), and ask MPs to contribute more. On top of this, the party is hoping to pay back its additional $825,000 in unlawful spending with its ‘big whip round’. This is not a party in a healthy organisational state.
