71 Results

Unions NSW is taking the government to court, claiming that restricting political donations to individuals is an infringement of the implied constitutional right of freedom of political speech.

Queensland Labor enters the 2012 election without one of its key campaigning tools of recent years. The party’s success has been built on massively outspending its opponents. New laws bring that to an end just when the tables were turned.

For several years now Crikey has engaged in the ritual denunciation of our Commonwealth electoral donation laws. It’s worth repeating.

Labor’s donations advantage vanished at the 2010 election, new data from the Australian Electoral Commission shows.

Almost everyone in mainstream politics says they oppose xenophobia, but foreigners have few friends among advocates of campaign finance reform, writes Andrew Norton, a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies.

Crikey readers have their say.

The material released this week by the Electoral Commission only gives a partial picture of who is funding our political parties.

Several companies and individuals have been identified in Liberal and Labor documents as making donations, but were not recorded on the AEC website as having made any returns, as they’re required to do.

Political donations data released by the Australian Electoral Commission yesterday shows a multi-million jump in donations for South Australia and Tasmania — the two states that held elections over the audit period.

Comparing the AEC data for NSW with the disclosures to the NSW Election Funding Authority (EFA) reveals some interesting trends in political donating and underlines the need for far reaching political funding reform, writes Lee Rhiannon, a Greens NSW Senator-elect.

Billionaire Queensland mining magnate Clive Palmer ratcheted up his political donations to the conservative side of politics to over $1 million in 2009-10, despite the Liberal Party declaring his cash persona non grata mid-way through the audit period, according to data released by the Australian Electoral Commission this morning.

The Australian Electoral Commission released political donations data today for 2009-10, giving us an insight into what political parties received from donors between 7 and 19 months ago.

The Victorian Liberals clearly remain the richest political division in the country. No one else can claim to own $50 million worth of shares.

$50,000 will get you in the door to talk to Premiers and Leaders of the Opposition in NSW. Or you can give it to the NSW Nats and visit “sunny Port Macquarie”.

Public funding, while giving a small leg up to some minor parties, has not prevented an arms race between the major parties, writes Graeme Orr, an author and associate professor at UQ Law School.

The Coalition has been exposed this week for its links to Big Tobacco. But Labor members are no clean-skins when it comes to accepting cash from the cigarette industry.