Crikey

Crikey’s lists of the biggest political donations for 2005-06 in last Thursday’s edition quite rightly focused on entries that were defined as “donations”. Our figures largely ignored those defined as “other receipts” because in the past these have these have been limited to things such as reimbursements from the tax office and public funding.

For instance, the $1.07 million “other receipt” from Adelaide Bank declared by the NSW ALP in 2004-05 wasn’t a donation, but simply interest earned from funds on deposit.

However, NSW Labor is now rorting this definitional confusion in a huge way and claiming most contributions it receives are “other receipts”. The party declared 384 contribution totalling $12.26 million in 2005-06 but only 20 of these worth $350,000 were actually classified as “donations”.

These are the biggest NSW ALP “donations” we published last Thursday:

Dr Stanley Ho - $109,000

Meriton Apartments Pty Ltd - $50,000.00

True Stanley Ho - $35,000

Becton Property Group - $27,500.00

Group Pty Ltd - $27,500.00

Total receipts: $12,261,225.04

Now, compare that with the following complete list of all contributions above $20,000 that NSW Labor pocketed in 2005-06 when you include “other receipts”:

SDA: $221,645

Health Services Union: $188,926

United Services Union: $111,723

North Steyn Investments: $110,000

AMWU: $95,704

Mirvac: $93,000

Australian Hotels Association: $92,500

Westfield $87,000

Johnson Property Group: $80,250

Macquarie Bank: $78,125

Kingold Group: $75,000

Grocon (Grollo family): $72,500

National Union of Workers: $67,817

Medich Properties: $60,000

Rail Tram and Bus Union: $51,596

Transport Workers Union: $48,758

CFMEU: $48,081

LHMU (Missos union): $46,905

Australand: $45,250

Bradcorp Holdings: $44,330

Memo Corporation: $42,650

Austcorp Group: $40,300

Australian Services Union: $39,394

Anson City Developments: $38,500

Clubs NSW: $38,250

Manildra: $38,000

Transfield: $37,000

Multiplex: $36,960

Australian Workers Union: $34,728

KPMG: $33,000

Leighton: $33,000

Babcock & Brown: $33,000

Sydney Markets: $33,000

Village Building Company: $33,000

Allco: $31,400

Strategic Contacts: $30,000

Walker Corporation: $28,500

Davidson Accountants: $27,500

Direct Factory Outlets: $27,500

McCloy Properties: $27,500

Pfizer: $27,500

Thakral: $27,500

Concrete Recyclers: $26,300

Hardie Holdings: $26,000

PKF Chartered Accountants: $24,080

PwC: $20,830

Lend Lease: $20,500

Seven Network: $20,000

Ziczac: $20,000

Labor has clearly put together a huge war chest for the coming campaign but who are they kidding in claiming developers such as Australand, Mirvac, Grocon and Walker Corp are not actually donating but instead providing some other service?

If these beneficiaries of NSW Government decisions are not simply writing out cheques then the exact nature of the benefit should be properly disclosed, not just lumped in with everything else in an indecipherable way.