Police have referred the Māori Party to the Serious Fraud Office after it failed to declare more than $300,000 of donations to the Electoral Commission on time.
Any donation of over $30,000 must be declared within 10 working days of it being received.
Three donations above that threshold were made to the Māori Party last year, but were not declared to the commission until recently.
The Māori Party said in a statement last night it has not had any official notification from any of the agencies involved. It plans to cooperate fully with any investigation and acknowledged it was late in reporting the donation and alerted the Electoral Commission.
Otago University Law Professor Andrew Geddis says there could be heavy penalties for this.
He spoke to Corin Dann.
