Liberal Party fundraising legend Michael Yabsley has called for a transition to a “low-value high volume” political donation system that would force parties to regrow their community links and end what Yablsey calls “governments for rent”.
Describing himself a poacher-turned-gamekeeper, the former treasurer of the federal Liberal Party and long-time critic of donation laws today launched “Dark Money”, a paper and a ten-point plan to radically alter political fundraising and expenditure. His plan involves:
- A $200 cap on political donations per individual, covering the entire electoral cycle in each jurisdiction
- A cap on election expenditure, including advertising
- Only enrolled Australian citizens permitted to make donations
- All donations to be anonymous and non-disclosable, as their small size would remove the case for disclosure
- No other entities, corporations, unions or organisations to be permitted to make donations
- All public funding of elections to be removed
- Laws to be enforced with criminal sanctions carrying custodial sentences, including targeting the aggregation of small donations into significantly larger donations
- National uniform donation laws across all states and territories
- Electoral commissions to police laws and review caps
- A bespoke federal/state body to develop a program of election debates and set media pieces during election campaigns.
Yabsley was joined by an array of luminaries for the launch: former Transfield head and deliberative democracy campaigner Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, Labor eminence grise Stephen Loosley, former banker and Women for Election CEO Licia Heath and former judge and Centre for Public Integrity chair Anthony Whealy.
Whealy, arguing the federal donations system was the most broken, singled out Scott Morrison’s “gas-led recovery” and large donations from companies like Santos as an example of the “perception that our political masters have been captured and policy is being driven by big donors”.
Belgiorno-Netti agreed, referring to his own experience of political donations and “rubber chicken” fundraiser attendance and his decision at Transfield to shut down all donations.
“We all know it’s pay to play,” he said, though he wants full public funding of campaigns and a deliberative committee chosen from Australian citizens to examine the matter.
Donations allow vested interests double influence, both internally and externally, Heath noted. Loosley urged bipartisan reform but rejected Yabsley’s proposal that unions be banned from donating like corporations, insisting “custom and tradition” and the organic links with Labor made trade union donations acceptable.
Yabsley’s role as instigator of the campaign push is significant — he is one of the most experienced political fundraisers in recent Australian history, with a strong understanding of the basic relationship between donors and politicians.
When a vastly experienced figure like Yabsley calls fundraising events “government for rent” and a business doyen describes the system as “pay to play”, there can be no room for further doubt or obfuscation — Australia’s political donations system, and especially the Commonwealth, is seen as corrupt by its most important participants.
Many strange things have come to pass in recent times, but few as strange as a former treasurer of the federal Liberal Party putting forward an excellent proposal for cleaning up one of the worst sources of political rot in this nation. And so it’s all the more welcome. Thank you Michael Yabsley, and thanks to everyone else involved in launching the Dark Money campaign.
Though, as Artfullydodgy has already remarked, it is going to be greeted by the main parties with as much enthusiasm as the proposed Federal ICAC, and for very similar reasons. They like all that money, their world is dependent on it, and they don’t like anyone shining too much light on it. Getting this reform through would involve agony for them like taking away an addict’s supply of junk. It would also be devastating to the wealth corporations and individuals whose business model involves buying political influence. For them this is a class war battlefield. They will fight all the way.
Can we however dare to hope? Just like I dare to hope that the general public are starting to see Emperor Morrision wears no clothes…
An image that, once conjured, cannot be unseen – thanks a heap!
I never did it!! Clearly figuratively… 😉
An article in The Intercept, recently, suggested that the “corporate fundraising” model of politics is just about over in the USA, having been vastly overtaken by very successful grass-roots small donation schemes. The politicians have realized that large donors want service: not just policy, but visits and dinners, and other time-soaks. Small donors don’t.
It would be a fairly radical change for Australia: we (or at least those of us interested in good outcomes) would have to get used to making regular donations to our parties of choice, just as we currently do to GetUp! or IA (or IPA if you’re that way inclined). Who can say how well that would work out.
Would be nice to have some politicians with interests aligned to pleasing their constituents, for a change. One can dream.
Hear Hear! but I doubt the Honorable member for Santos, Angus Taylor, would agree.
‘Bout as much chance of being legislated as a meaningful Federal ICAC.
Some of the logic is inherently unworkable. A maximum of $200 is fine if a little low but it can’t be anonymous – if donations are anonymous what’s to stop someone donating 10,000 times?
Somewhere there needs to be a list tying a person to whether they’ve donated or not and how much they’ve donated so far.
Don’t forget the dodgy types sitting on milk crates, feeding the Commonwealth banks’ spiffy-nu ATMs $100 bills, hour after hour.
Rather sounds like hard work but better than paying tax.
I am surprised there are no objections so far to Loosley’s call for Unions to be exempt, on the grounds of tradition. I’m a rusted on leftie but even I can see this can’t be allowed, despite the fact the current ALP has moved well away from its blue collar roots. I also wonder how there could be anonymous donations but a law against the aggregations of multiple donations. Workable? I think not.
Hasn’t the High Court already ruled a ban on donations by the unions is unconstitutional?
I would say that the unions are different to corporations in that they represent people and, theoretically, they have the best interests of the people at heart.
Agree fully, although corporation is at law treated very much like a person, so it could get messy if challenged