Do Greens and crossbenchers who claim that transparency
and integrity is at the heart of their reason for entering Parliament in the first place hear themselves?
In the past few days they have mounted self-serving arguments against proposed
electoral reforms that the major parties look set to come together to support.
The reforms include caps for how much money wealthy individuals can donate,
caps on the amount candidates can spend in individual electorates to prevent the equivalent of an arms race, and a $90million limit on what any party can spend at an election - actually less
than the major parties currently spend.
The proposed new laws also include lower disclosure thresholds for donations, thus increasing the transparency of
who makes political donations in the first place.
So the wealthy wont be able to hide behind anonymity while using their cash to influence election outcomes
- and the extent to which they can use their wealth at
all will be limited.
The bill will further improve transparency by also increasing the speed and frequency that disclosures of
donations need to be made.
At present we have the absurd situation in which donations get made - but you only find out the details of who has given what to
whom many months later, well after elections are won and
lost.
In other words, what is broadly being proposed will result in much
greater transparency and far less big money being injected into campaigning by the wealthy.
Teal Kylea Tink claimed the major parties were 'running scared' with the policy and warned the reform would 'not stop
the rot'
Greens senate leader Larissa Waters (left) fired a warning shot - saying if it serves only the major parties 'it's a rort,
not reform'. Teal independent ACT senator David Pocock (right) said: 'What seems
to be happening is a major-party stitch-up'
Anyone donating more than $1,000 to a political party, as opposed to $16,000 under the
current rules, will need to disclose having done so. And how much they can donate will be capped.
Yet the Greens and Teals have quickly condemned the proposed
new laws, labeling them a 'stitch-up', 'outrageous' and 'a rort,
not a reform'.
They have lost their collective minds after finding out that Labor's proposal just might
secure the support of the opposition.
I had to double check who was criticising what
exactly before even starting to write this column.
Because I had assumed - incorrectly - that these important transparency
measures stamping out the influence of the wealthy must have
been proposed by the virtue-signalling Greens or the
corruption-fighting Teals, in a united crossbench effort to drag the
major parties closer to accountability.
More fool me.
The bill, designed to clean up a rotten system, is being put forward
by Labor and is opposed by a growing cabal of crossbenchers.
It makes you wonder what they have to hide. Put simply, the Greens and Teals doth protest too much
on this issue.
Labor is thought to be trying to muscle out major political donors such as
Clive Palmer
Another potential target of the laws is businessman and Teal funder Simon Holmes à Court
The Greens have taken massive donations in the past,
contrary to their irregular calls to tighten donations rules (Greens leader Adam Bandt and Senator
Mehreen Faruqi are pictured)
The major parties have long complained about the influence the
likes of Simon Holmes à Court wields behind the scenes
amongst the Teals.
And we know the Greens have taken massive donations from the wealthy in the past, contrary to their irregular calls to tighten donations rules.
Now that tangible change has been proposed, these bastions of virtue are
running a mile from reforms that will curtail dark art of political donations.
The Labor government isn't even seeking for these transparency rules
to take effect immediately, by the way. It won't be some sort of quick-paced power play before the next election designed to catch the crossbench out.
They are aiming for implementation by 2026, giving
everyone enough time to absorb and understand the changes
before preparing for them.
Don't get me wrong, no deal has yet been done between Labor and the Coalition. I imagine the opposition want to
go over the laws with a fine tooth comb.
As they should - because it certainly isn't
beyond Labor to include hidden one-party advantages
in the proposed design which would create loopholes only the unions are capable of taking advantage of, therefore
disadvantaging the Coalition electorally in the years
to come.
But short of such baked-in trickiness scuttling a
deal to get these proposed laws implemented, the crossbench should
offer their support, not cynical opposition, to what is being advocated for.
They might even be able to offer something worthwhile that
could be incorporated in the package.
To not do so exposes their utter hypocrisy and blowhard false commentary about being in politics to 'clean things up'.
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