Donations: Democracy's Addiction

Australian Democracy is addicted to that one enormous crack in the sytem: political donations. Yesterday the Australian Electoral Commission revealed its annual account of political donations of the previous financial year. Each year the public is appalled at the level of donations received by the major political parties, which leads many people asking the question how can they get away with it?

Is this a subversion of democracy? Are wealthy individuals or corporations able to get undue influence? These are the questions many people are asking.

According to the AEC Almost $75m went to political parties this past year (this is down substantially, i am guessing because there few big elections?). So who are donating? Look at these stats:

• The top twelve donar developers gave over $1m to the Liberals and Labor. (source)
  
• Westfield Capital Corp. Ltd alone gave $330,000 to the Labor and Liberal Parties. (source)
  
• "Labor received more than $3.6 million from party-controlled entities such as Labor Holdings Pty Ltd, John Curtin House Ltd and the Progressive Business Association." (source)
  
• "The Liberal Party raked in $1.4 million from organisations like the Cormack Foundation and The 500 Club, while almost $320,000 flowed to the Nationals from a variety of trusts and foundations." (source)

Absolutely disgusting!!! Do you want to know what is even worse? The company Tristar are in a degrading battle with its employees over entitlements (read more about it here) and yet the ALP, who are using the Tristar battle as an example against Howard's IR laws, received over $100,000 in donations from Tristar. NSW Greens Upperhouse Representative Lee Rhiannon has called on the ALP to put that money into a trust fund for the embattled workers.

The NSW greens have a very strict policy when it comes to donation. You can read it here but the main thrust is:

• prohibiting political donations from corporations;
• adequate, fair and transparent public funding of all elections;
• prompt and transparent disclosure of all donations on a public website maintained by the electoral office;
• capping political donations at $10,000 per individual per year; and
• introducing legislation to prevent retiring members of parliament entering employment for two years with any private organisation that could obtain an unfair advantage.

Indeed, this issue has been a campaign focal point for the Greens. For example, the NSW greens through Lee Rhiannon's office has developed the website democracy4sale.org that is a nice easy portal to quickly find who donated what to which party (the above image came from there too). It is a must bookmark website.

This addiction to donations has to end, but it won't end while the addicted Liberals and Labor parties are in complete control of government. They must hit rock bottom before they will get any better. Voting Green in the next election will help ensure that they are made accountable for their actions.