Rich-lister helped bankroll Brown’s campaign for mayor

New Zealand’s richest man, billionaire Graeme Hart, was behind the biggest single donation to Auckland mayor Wayne Brown’s winning $470,000 election campaign. The Hart-owned Rank Group made the biggest individual donation of $58,265 to the Brown campaign, according to the mayor’s statutory declaration of donations and expenses. According to Bloomberg, Hart is one of the 200 richest people in the world, worth about US$10.9 billion (NZ$17b). Hart, who made his vast fortune in packaging, is no stranger to political donations, having previously given money to the National Party, New Zealand First and the ACT Party.