The Coalition appears set to demand environmental groups be treated like political parties when it comes to transparency over donations.
The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters held a hearing on the issue of foreign donations on Wednesday, ahead of its report due back to government early next month. The report is expected to recommend that donations to political parties and associated entities or third parties from non-Australian citizens and businesses based outside Australia be banned.
While the focus of the hearing was supposed to be on foreign donations, many Liberal members of the committee (in particular Ben Morton and Linda Reynolds) remained focused on the campaigning activities of GetUp and the recent news that three environmental groups — 350.org, Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and Sunrise — were targeting Coalition MPs in their electorates in Queensland over the controversial Adani coal mine.
Reynolds asked Erickson if the rules around financial disclosure for political parties were changed and foreign donations were banned, whether that should also apply to groups like GetUp or the ACF.
“They’re actually actively involved in these self-declared political activities. Shouldn’t they be involved in the same ban or disclosure?” she asked.
Erickson said if that campaigning in specific electorates was done around election time, it might be appropriate that they be treated the same as political parties.
Nutt said there should be a level playing field where all groups participating in the democratic process were bound by the same rules and obligations in regards to where their money was sourced, and what had to be disclosed.
“There shouldn’t be loopholes or ways for people to use money or resources … We’ve got a lot of people now who are aggregating a lot of resources,” he said, adding that the new third-party players like GetUp were “highly aggressive” in their political campaigning.
One suggestion from the Coalition senators was for groups like ACF and 350.org to report not only their donations related to political activity, as they have to declare today, but also donations made in relation to their administrative work, payroll and other general expenses. Reynolds indicated that environmental groups had received $600 million in donations over the past 10 years, but very little of it had been publicly disclosed.
Morton complained that GetUp had been invited to appear before the committee — the group did appear late last year — but had declined three times. It will be making an appearance in another committee later this week. Morton said 350.org, Sunrise, World Wildlife Fund and ACF all also declined to appear. The trip to Canberra, he said, was much less than the groups’ travel expenditure.
“I think it is quite shameful.It’s a $90 bus ride from Sydney to Canberra.”
In what is surely just a coincidence, the Minerals Council of Australia’s submission to the inquiry — uploaded to the committee page shortly after the hearing — contains many of the same criticisms of the environmental groups levelled by the Liberal senators:
“The MCA is not questioning the right of environmental groups to pursue political objectives or to raise money for this purpose. However, these groups should not be exempt from reasonable disclosure obligations that help maintain public confidence in Australia’s political system.”
Labor’s assistant national secretary Paul Erickson and Liberal national director Tony Nutt both agreed that there should be restrictions on foreign donations, both saying that their view was in line with what the community now expected. Nutt said the law must not be “vague with draconian penalties” and said dual nationals, Australians living overseas and businesses operating in Australia but with ties overseas, should not be banned from making donations.
The committee will today hear from the Minerals Council of Australia, fresh from donating Treasurer Scott Morrison a lump of coal he used as a prop in question time.
Get Up is a grass roots organisation that does a great job and it should be completely free of political parties and their disclosure rules. Good luck to them and stuff the LNP/MCA alliance.
What bullshit. Do In hear cries for the IPA to disclose its funding? Where are these useless bastards in the ALP? In to them for gawd’s sake. How do they let Turncoat get away with sycophant without a hostile riposte. How dare you call me sycophant while you grovel before the coal lobby and the MCA.
Or the ACL?
“Your Limited News Party At Work – Delivering On Your Paid Bidding” – what good are donations if you can’t get what you pay for?
Why dance to the tune of the miners? With the very limited amount of mine rehabilitation that has occurred in every State, surely these people have exhausted their social capital. Also mine rehabilitation equals local employment.
Problem is, mining companies maintain LNP servitude not by being good corporate citizens and paying their fair share of tax, not by being good environmental citizens and cleaning up after themselves, not by being creators of large numbers of secure jobs. No, Minerals Council members maintain the LNP’s servitude by providing political donations. If the general public knew the true details of the arrangements, of the mining sector’s true impact on jobs/environment/revenue, we’d still have a mining tax right now (the original version, the one that actually collected fair revenue from the start). We need to move towards publicly funded politics so that the influence of vested interests via funding of political parties can be minimised. Politicians must be made accountable to the public, to the common good, the common wealth, NOT to their donors. Unfortunately, this reform does not appear to be on the radar in any real way. Declaring all donations to political parties within 14 days of receipt via an online AEC registry (with hefty fines for late declarations and party deregistration and MP sacking for persistent flouting of the reporting rules) that can be inspected at will by anyone will go some way to rectifying this anti-democratic cancer in our political system. But that’s just me 😉
and me. sounds like a plan.
how do we make it happen is the question?
Not just the LNP: Adani-Carmichael coal mine ( with a TRAIN!!!) ring any bells?
As OGO sez – goose & gander, let’s see who’s behind those “think” tanks/
I wonder how long it will be before we follow Dakota USA and make it legal to run over environmental protestors- by accident, of course. Just a slip of the foot from brake to accelerator. The sun in your eyes, causing you to pull the steering wheel the wrong way.