Wall St was down 94 overnight, its biggest fall in a month, while the local market is down 66.
Coalition stymies donations transparency. Again.
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It’s a big call and it may yet prove mistaken but yesterday probably witnessed the low point in political accountability in this Parliamentary term. In the Senate, the Coalition combined with Steve Fielding to block the Government’s electoral reform bill, which would have reversed some of the Howard government’s savage attacks on political transparency, such as returning the donation disclosure threshold from $10,900 to $1000. The return of the donation disclosure threshold to $1000 was a well-advertised election commitment by the ALP in 2007. It has been blocked by the party that lost the election and a senator elected on the vote of 1.77% of Victorians. The bill also tightened donation reporting requirements to end the farce that meant we didn’t find out who had donated to parties before the 2007 election until February this year and banned foreign donations. Shadow special minister of state Michael Ronaldson, who has not supported a single one of the Government’s efforts to increase political transparency and accountability, immediately issued a gloating press release declaring “Labor has only itself to blame” for the defeat of the bill. Well, actually Senator, the people who voted against it are to blame. You and your colleagues and the fragile fundamentalist from Victoria. Fielding, at least, had a sort of reason why he blocked the bill. Fielding complained that public funding of political parties “has been rife with rorting”. You’d think that, given the bill specifically includes a Pauline Hanson-inspired limit so that parties can only claim funding for their actual expenses, Fielding would therefore support it. Instead, Fielding wants a separate cap on public funding of political parties of $10m, an entirely separate issue. And a limit on public funding — the Labor and Liberal parties got about $20m each for the 2007 election — would, one would expect, further encourage reliance on donations. But, nevertheless, that was Fielding’s excuse for voting against it. Perhaps he’s grumpy that the Government will no longer be participating in the death of women in developing countries who are forced to seek unsafe abortions. The Opposition, however, have been trying to block this bill from the get-go. They referred it to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Affairs, which is conducting the usual inquiry into the last election. This was an attempt to ensure it wasn’t even considered before June this year. Labor circumvented that by bringing forward the inquiry into the bill. To demonstrate how important they thought the inquiry was, the Liberal Party lodged a contemptibly brief one-page submission demanding the bill be withdrawn. Nevertheless, the Joint Committee recommended some amendments to the bill, which the Government accepted. It was good enough for the Greens and Nick Xenophon, but Fielding and the Coalition killed it. Ronaldson was recently joined by staffer Peter Phelps, from the far right of the NSW Liberal Party, best known for his disastrous attack on Mike Kelly in the lead-up to the last election. Phelps crafted the Howard Government’s assault on electoral transparency as Chief of Staff to then Special Ministers of State Eric Abetz and Gary Nairn, part of which the bill would have overturned. The media reaction has been bizarrely muted, with only flat media reports that the bill failed to pass. Given the normally febrile press reaction to any issue about political donations or politicians rorting public funding, you’d expect the Coalition and Fielding would be attracting savage criticism for blocking the most basic of electoral disclosure and funding reforms. Faulkner will reintroduce the bill as soon as possible — possibly next week. The Coalition has placed on record its utter contempt for transparency and accountability. Will Steve Fielding do the same again? |
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13 Comments
Err….. thanks Dave…… I think….. although I suspect you are rather more ‘gullible’ when it comes to views expressed from the left side of politics! Not that that implies that there’s anything wrong with the left side of politics. (There is, in fact, much wrong with the left side of politics. However my point didn’t presuppose it).
This article unilaterally lambasts the Liberal party and Senator Ronaldson in particular. I have followed Bernard Keane’s articles on this topic and his fervour is evident. I remain unconvinced that his disdain is justified.
In particular, if a caustic and sweeping criticism is made of the opposite side of politics to the author’s then natural justice dictates that their argument are fairly presented.There was not even a cursory effort today to even suggest that the Liberal party had an argument despite the vicious rhetoric. Moreover: “Fielding, at least, had a sort of reason why he blocked the bill” says the Liberals had no argument at all.
Bernard’s point that he did not want to waste our time rehashing old Liberal arguments that he’d presented before is disingenuous at best and wilfully dishonest at worst. Neither does it mitigate the criticism inherent in my original comment.
I am all for a transparency; without it democracy fails. Apple pie is good and all that.
I would have liked Bernard to explain what Senator Ronaldson means when he says: “This issue is too serious to be debased by having cherry picked legislation”
What serious campaign finance reform is Labor leaving out Bernard?
Is Ronaldson right? Is this fair? Is there a bigger picture?
I’ll bet there is!
ahhhh, steve fielding, always true to his principles - none at all - and to his puppet masters in the seats to the left of the senate president.
AHEM.
For those who have waded through my previous efforts on this issue, I’ve discussed the nonsensical basis on which the Coalition bases its opposition - the claim that a high threshold is required because union bogeymen will smash their way into small businesses and threaten them if it is revealed they donated to the Liberal Party.
No single example of this piece of anti-union Grand Guignol has ever been produced, and the AEC has specifically addressed the issue in its submission on the bill., rejecting it outright.
If subscribers wish, I can write every article from first principles and assume no one has ever read anything here before. It’ll make things longer and more tedious - even more tedious in my case - but if it helps…
Apart from providing the “Labor has only itself to blame” quote, Bernard Keane has not reported a single Coalition argument in support of their stance in the Senate.
Perhaps because Bernard is unable to provide a rebuttal to their assertions?
Those evil Liberals…..
Makes you wonder whether the Liberals have any valid arguments at all in favour of keeping the threshold at $10k.
As a resident of NSW, and taking into account the alledged disgraceful acts of corruption in both Wollongong and Shellharbour Municipalities (the ALP State Govt sacked them both - we’ve been denied our democratic right to elect our Councillors) and the evidence during the Inquiry into developers allegedly making hefty donations to the ALP, the Liberal Party in NSW came out castigating the ALP. On reflection, and with the figures subsequently published, the Liberals were as bad or worse. The screams from Liberal Leader Barry O’Farrell were of righteous anger. They have gone very quiet of late, and their response to this disgraceful action by their federal counterparts and Fielding has not raised a wimper! No wonder they have such little respect in the community.
We hear the mantra of the MInister for Police for example, when draconian laws are introduced into the Parliament (also NSW) that give police more access to deny peoples’ basic rights, that ‘if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear’? When this same argument is shot home to the federal conservatives over this instance, not a viable argument can be made. This is the first time and place that I’ve learned of this disgraceful action. Why is that? So much for a robust media, vitally important for a workable democracy. I’m disgusted, yet again! They are proving on a daily basis, that they have no scruples, no morals and should hang their heads in shame! Thank you Crikey!
Unfucking believable! This should be screaming from the front page of every paper in town. I hope crikey is going to go to Fielding and confront him
You Crikey dudes sure know how to waffle.
So the $96 million sent OS to magically help Australia’s economic recovery doesn’t rate?
Bernard, being a day behind the news sure allows for smart-arse comments but let’s face it you’re post-hoc darling.
For you Labor supporters that means like “in hindsight”.
JamesK raises a good point - I encourage all readers to check out the source material:
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/dailys/ds110309.pdf
and decide for themselves whether it is the ALP or the Libs whose arguements seem sounder. The Libs come out better in Hansard than they do in Bernard’s article, but I still feel their arguements are not sound reasons to have opposed this measure.
Good article. Sure, the Libs will do worse under the proposed changes than the ALP, but the public interest lies with supporting this bill. Fielding looks dumber and dumber with each passing tight Senate ballot.
Thanks for the link Dave, gee whiz they go on with a load of crap in Parliament don’t they? (p24 onwards for those with the stomach for it)
Seems to me the Libs are doing the classic “be seen to be doing something” approach, rather than changing legislation. Their only defense was that they want a full inquiry into all electoral goings on before they will approve this ammendment.
I disagree. The threshold was changed under Howard, and should be changed back. This bill seeks to achieve that. The libs are blocking it, for no definitive reason, but just because they want a more wide ranging inquiry.
I’m calling their bluff, and they deserve to be dragged through the coals.
Yes jamesk gets close to the mark when he asks the question”what serious campaign finance reform is labor leaving out?” The answer is quite obvious - third party support.
There is no question that whatever Labor might report under the existing or the proposed legislation, they have no intention of having to report the millions of dollars of corporate and other support that has been and will be provided by the Unions. This support is not and is not intended to be caught, as far as I can see, and yet it dwarfs what Labor has and will report. This is the hypocrisy of the Faulkner amendments, and that is why the Faulkner approach should not proceed until true transparency is sought and achieved.
Mea culpa Bernard, I just get sucked in by JamesK EVERY SINGLE TIME!!! (Seriously, JamesK’s contribution today did actually seem reasonable to me, but I subsequently failed to notice your links to previous articles on the issue so my second comment was unfair to you).
Also apols to Ev - I’ve talked about the public interest but subsequently linked to Senate Hansard without adding that you need to go to page 24, thus exposing the public to some pretty dodgy rants.