Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is set to be wedged in, by independents for the next federal election, on political donations and lies in political advertising.
Everyone knows that billionaires and dodgy media owners have a huge influence on who gets elected in Australian politics and the crossbenchers in both houses of Parliament have united to introduce legislation that “aims to improve transparency, protect voters from outright lies, reduce financial influence, level the playing field, and limit excessive donations.” (Click here to read more)
The Guardian reported (19/3/24):
Mega donations of more than $1.5m would be banned under a crossbench plan to get big money out of politics.
Lower house independents, including Kate Chaney, Zali Steggall, the Greens, David Pocock, Lidia Thorpe and the Jacqui Lambie Network, will present a united front by introducing the fair and transparent elections bill in both houses of parliament.
The bill contains a suite of reforms including truth-in-political advertising, a ban on donations from socially harmful industries including fossil fuels, and tightening the definition of gifts to capture major party fundraisers, including dinners and business forums.
The bill legislates Labor’s election promises to lower the donation disclosure threshold to $1,000 and real-time disclosure of donations within five business days. (Click here to read more)
The Labor Party are also claiming they want “big money to be taken out of politics” but not until after the next federal election which is not credible given they might change their mind afterwards like they did with the National Anti-Corruption Commission public hearings.
But Labor have wasted no time attacking the independents for their attempt to reform election laws.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with independent MPs Monique Ryan, Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney and Zoe Daniel
The SMH has reported (20/3/24):
Teal independent MPs elected on a platform of transparency are seeking to preserve the influence of their wealthy financial donors, according to senior minister Don Farrell, as the debate over money in politics becomes incendiary.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Farrell turned their sights on a group of crossbenchers who on Tuesday revealed their own proposed bill that would cap political donations at $1.5 million per person but not set limits on election spending. (Click here to read more)
Kate Chaney asked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in parliament on Tuesday (19/3/24) about election law reform and I published the below video: “Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ducks and weaves when asked about donations & lies in political ads”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese failed to answer the question in the above video and instead responded with a word salad designed to deflect which is a standard political tactic.
The proposed electoral reforms are not just about donations. A key part is stamping out election lies which voters are sick of and the Labor Party government, at this point, do not plan on doing anything on any of the election law reforms before the next election.
Independents and minor parties will use the government’s failure to try and fix dodgy donations and election lies as a sign the government is corrupt, and I think it will have an impact as voters have had enough of corruption in politics.
If Clive Palmer spends another $100 million at the next federal election telling as many lies as he did the last federal election, then the federal government will own it if they failed to try and put a stop to it.
But Clive Palmer isn’t he only one who tells lies at election time and the major parties have a long history of telling lies themselves and maybe that is a motivator for Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party to do nothing and why Peter Dutton and the coalition are so quite on the issue.
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Categories: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
Albonese is not PM material… overdue a power struggle. Not an inspiring person, dead boring just like John Howard, has no vision for our future.
AA is the best PM since Keating. He might be boring but not nearly as dangerous as Howard.
There is more than one way to skin a cat. Multiple smaller donations is how they beat the system. Lies are part of every day life in politics.
IMHO:
ALL DONATIONS greater than $1.00 should be made public, on a CENTRAL gov.au website regardless of the political party.
The donor’s Name must be printed and appear on an Australian Federal Electoral Roll.
The name, $$$amount, Electorate and the recipient party and member / candidate (as a minimum) should also be listed.
NO CORPORATIONS, COMPANIES, BUSINESSES, CHURCHES, etc. can donate to a political party or individual.
As far as I am concerned (AFAIAC), this is THE STARTING POINT.
ALL PURVEYORS of LIES in CAMPAIGNS and ADVERTISING and GOVERMENT or OPPOSITION should be charged and prosecuted with Contempt of Parliament (a new charge), for lying to their colleagues, electoral constituents and the people of Australia. They are there in Parliament for the People of Australia – NO ONE ELSE.
AFAIAC, this is also THE STARTING POINT.
Watch and listen now to the weasel words and statements put out by ALL pollies, MSM, corporations, millionaires, billionaires, departments, etc.
IMHO, they sicken me. This can be done. We need our people’s government and democracy back.
Spot on Fred. It sickens me too. Go the Independents!
Start by voting independents and the Greens.
I agree that only individuals should be able to donate, and only Australian electors. They recently brought that in in Canada, I think, that only individuals can make political donations, not companies etc. Making every tiny donation public though would stop most people from donating at all, and goes against the concept of a secret ballot. Possibly declaring them to the AEC, but then that also carries the same risk of compromising the secret ballot/making political preferences available to government/potential risk to donors if democracy falls. How it is at the moment where only the candidate/party keeps that information on small donors is probably safer. But yes on kicking out corporations from donating. It should be individual voters only.
The Teals (Independents) are happy to be bankrolled by a self-styled climate investor and activist Holmes à Court the leader of Climate 200. At the last federal election his Climate 200 outfit spent almost $13 million on teal candidates advocating climate action, possibly more that has not been disclosed, there are details of the 63 donors who had given more than the threshold of $14,500 and some contributed substantially more.
The Teals are probably the most concentrated and least transparent on funding of any campaigners, they seek transparency from political parties with donations, yet they want to implement their own policies when their backer Holmes a Court’s well known challenge to the major parties on political donations was urging them to increase transparency by lowering the disclosure threshold from the existing $14,500 to $1,00 but not set limits on election spending.
This shows that elections can be bought.
Disappointed with the party I’m a member of is putting this off.