Michael Yabsley’s Dark Money isn’t merely a 10-point plan for reform of political donations and election spending, aimed at decoupling donations from policy and decision-making, but the extended screed of a former insider who has turned on the system he mastered and is determined that voters should understand just how dangerous it is.
There’s a palpable hit on every page as the former federal treasurer of the Liberal Party opens fire.
On the role of fundraising in careers:
At preselection the ability to “raise the loot” is an unofficial KPI. Preselectors love to find a good fundraiser as the next candidate, for obvious reasons. Money can mean the difference between winning and losing at preselection.
On Sunland (which involved Stuart Robert making a speech for a Liberal donor):
Disgraced NSW Prisons Minister Rex Jackson may have been able to take bribes to get people out of jail. In the Sunland case it was dark money that kept wrongly accused Australians in jail. They were eventually rescued by clever, below the radar diplomatic and political manoeuvrings. Watch this space. This story needs to be told as an exemplar to clean up the system. Me simply writing this means there will be sweaty palms. You know who you are.
On Malcolm Turnbull:
… recall Malcolm Turnbull’s $1.75 million donation to the Liberal Party in 2017. Buying the keys to The Lodge is a bad look. The self-serving generosity of that donation had more than a whiff about it of American politics.
On Clive Palmer:
I’m about as big a fan of small government, minimal regulation, cutting red tape and live and let live as you will find. But does that mean I think a financial colossus should be allowed to throw $80 million at a political campaign? No, I don’t. Democracy is something of a hybrid between robust and resilient – but it’s fragile at the same time. And precious. No, a billionaire should not be allowed to threaten the equilibrium of democracy with a dollar-driven ballot box coup.
How serious is this?
Our democratic system will continue to weaken unto death. Australia will risk becoming – to quote Paul Keating – a political ‘banana republic’ rather than the democratic global exemplar we need to be. Especially in the context of the rise of China.
Business observer programs and private dinners:
Far more audacious and largely unscrutinised are the opaquely named ‘business observer programmes’ (BOP’s) run by political parties in tandem with party conferences. The BOP’s capitalise on the fact that these conferences are attended by large numbers of leaders, ministers and shadow ministers. Dark money insiders used to call BOP’s the ‘speed dating’ circuit of politics. These days, it’s more like ‘Tinder’… If party conference organisers don’t believe there’s something wrong with this practice, why do they ban journalists covering these conferences from access to the ‘Tinder’ rooms? Again: ‘nothing to see here’. Not much, except an orgy of political whoring.
The inescapable fact is these events are subverting our democracy. Constituents are meant to have equal access to their elected representatives… The cost to the integrity of the democratic system from these ‘speed dating, government for rent’ offerings is immeasurable.
In the integrity stakes BOP’S are slow-moving targets compared to the intimate ‘private dinners arranged for corporate heavyweights for the sole purpose of getting the privileged — paid for — ear of government. Before anyone beats me to it, yes, I have organised these dinners between donors and ministers right to the top of the political food chain. Yes, it is pay to play. The private dinners are often held at Parliament House.
Getting photographed with a donor:
It’s about getting that special photo with the minister to hang on the wall in the office. A signal to everybody who walks through the door about your connections. About what you can get done. Provided the dark money is right. These corporate happy snaps are a minefield for government leaders and ministers. There are many stressed smiles as political heavyweights pose repeatedly for selfies at fundraising functions with donors and supporters, not having a clue about the company they are keeping. Until, sitting in the witness box, the SC at ICAC tells them.
NSW corruption:
Prima facie, if the Obeid/McDonald convictions suggest giving a leg up to a donor falls within the scope of misuse of public office laws, every second person from the top down in Macquarie Street would be caught in this net. And so they should be.
Public funding:
In many respects public funding is a more serious rort than anything that may come from private donors for the simple reason it is taxpayers’ money. At least donors get asked to put their hands in their pocket. Taxpayers aren’t even given a choice.
As I posted yesterday afternoon when Keane’s first piece about this appeared:
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.
… 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 wealthy corporations and individuals whose business model involves buying political influence. For them this is a class war battlefield. They will fight all the way.
Ex-ministers should be banned for 5 years from working as a lobbyist in areas over which they previously held responsibility. (see NSW Greens policy on election funding)
they should be banned for min 5 years from working in any lobby group and as an adviser, all so their pension should be means tested as all others are and have the same rules apply .
It’s incorrect to say all other pensions are means tested. Many pensions are funded by contributions made by the pensioner before retirement. There is no basis or reason to means test such pensions. However, ministers’ pensions are an unfunded defined benefit scheme paid with money appropriated within the Commonwealth Budget. Gosh how very generous, whose idea was that? So yes, why not means test it under the same rules as state pensions? (It would cease to be defined benefits, obviously, because it is quite impossible for a scheme to be both defined benefit and means tested.) The main reason, I would guess, is that it would then be identical to the state pension and so there would no point to it, might as well just give them the state pension. Which is very unlikely ever to pay any of them a cent under current rules given their assets and incomes. Sounds good to me.
Those pension arrangements changed for new MP’s in 2004 I believe.
I think you’re right about MPs, but the ministers held on to their generous privileges.
It’s odd how many people make little or no distionction between MPs and ministers. The former are our representatives in the legislature, if they’d only wake up, remember it and start doing their job. The latter are the executive government, appointed by the Crown, and they despise MPs and parliament as much as thet despise the public. One of their great tricks in recent decades – Thatcher started it – is to freeze or cut the pay or benefits of MPs and get the praise of the public for doing it. Many of the public think it is a selfless gesture, not realising the ministers enjoy doing down MPs out of spite while their ministerial benefits are unaffected or increasing.
They were. Latham shamed Howard into removing the defined benefit pension for all those entering parliament from 2004 onwards – but of course didn’t make it retrospective. I also believe that unlike the rest of us, retiring parliamentarians could access that indexed defined benefit pension for life immediately if they had served at least three terms, regardless of their age. Bill O’Chee is a stand out in this regard, serving from 1990 to 1999 when he retired at the ripe old age of 35 and more recently EY’s defence consultant Christopher Pyne pulled the pin and got his pension when he was 52.
A photo displayed at a business premises of a politician shaking hands with one of the directors/management would automatically indicate there had been a price paid.
Makes me wonder why I bother voting at all!
So you can leave a message on the ballot paper and still have it count. Start a Nation Campaign. Everybody write “Federal ICAC NOW!” on the back of their ballot paper.
Does anyone take note of each message written on ballot papers, and if they do, what happens then? How does this compare to other ways of attempting to influence the government or MPs, such as contacting your representative or signing a petition?
I’m not criticising your suggestion, I’m just wondering what effect it has, if any. If it does attract any serious attention, why not post a complete list of all your demands into the ballot box along with your vote?
The party scrutineers will see these messages. If they are numerous or they convey a powerful message, they may have an effect. One such message may be, “I used to be a [Liberal/Labor] voter, but… .” It tells them why they lost your vote.
Yes, the scrutineers. Just about the most lowly and insignificant toilers in our election apparatus. Spraying a slogan on a wall is far more likely to change things than scribbling on a ballot paper.
I don’t think that’s true. I’ve been a counter. The scrutineers and higher officials only bother looking at those that could breach the rule on identifying the voter, or invalid voting (eg illegible writing).
And write in pen so it can’t be rubbed out as well as the vote. Vote in pen! A new campaign.
Only the vote counters see these comments.
No, party scrutineers also see them.
Public funding a rort? No,Yabsley has it back to front. Elections should only be funded by the sovereign currency issuer, without bothering the taxpayer at all. Private donors not wanted. As for buying access to politicians, it should be a waste of money if the politicians policies are already clear.
You may be confusing elections with parties. Of course national elections should not be funded by voluntary donations. Parties are another matter entirely. On what basis would you deny every citizen the opportunity to support the political party of their choice by making some contribution? Putting an upper limit on individual contributions is one thing, preventing any at all is quite different. Would you also ban party membership fees? How would parties be funded in your world (if they are funded), and who would decide how much funding they receive?
Political parties have running expenses which ought to be covered by the currency-issuer (sovereign government).
Supporters of political parties are volunteers; the policies of parties should be examined by a media concerned with policy, not adversarial politics. The eternal Left-Right divide itself is madness, a contest between those who have money and those who don’t. Do you want someone ringing you up, to support a particular party?
[In “my world”, a consensus one-party meritocracy has its attractions, in comparison to our adversarial multiparty “democracies” which are plutocracies in which ‘money talks’ ….note China is striving, groping toward “common prosperity” whereas entrenched poverty is a given in our market economy in which employment levels are determined by the NAIRU.]
And how does this ‘sovereign currency issuer’ generate money for elections? Print it?
ROSS GITTINS: Funding the budget by printing money is closer than you think
It turns out the legal currency-issuer (government) can issue and spend money without taxing or borrowing from the private sector; the constraint for a currency-issuer (to avoid inflation) is resources available for purchase, not dollars. The present system banning central banks from doing so, is a hangover from classical economics which omitted a role for the public sector in wealth creation. And the gold standard has long been abandoned, since the sheer volume of global trade rendered it inoperable.