Political donations, better called political payments, should be banned. They are nothing more than a legal protection racket. Corporate mobsters rule. Michael West explains why.
American comedian Bob Newhart died last week. He was best known for his deadpan humour; and his iconic ‘Stop It’ gag describes perfectly what needs to be done with political donations. Just stop it!
Once upon a time, there was a reason for donations. It was a rubbish reason, but it had a weak logic to it. Political parties needed to pay for newspaper ads and TV space to get their message across. Ads cost money.
Since then, things like Twitter and Facebook have been invented, so getting your message across is free. If it’s a good message rather than just political fluff, people do watch, read and listen.
So, there is no reason for political donations; they merely entrench corporate control of the major party duopoly. This week, it was furtively announced by Resources Minister Madeleine King – against the directions of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and a myriad of other global bodies – that a bunch of new fossil fuel exploration licences were to be approved for multi-national drillers such as epic tax dodgers Exxon and Chevron.
They are both party donors to both the major parties. Deploying the usual Orwellian language, it was to “firm up renewables,” Ten new Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) licences were also awarded, no matter that CCS doesn’t work.
An influence racket
Why the housing crisis? Lobbying and donations. Why the rampant fossil fuel approvals? Lobbying and donations, that’s why. The same goes for policy in health and pharma, financial services, defence, you name it.
Political payments are a racket that staves off good policy.
They entrench the very opposite of good government, and Australians are onto it – they know it’s a racket. A blatant racket. Official, legalised corruption.
An investigation by our reporter Stephanie Tran found that a bunch of the wealthiest corporations even had party membership deals. Woodside, Wesfarmers, PwC and ASX are Platinum members of the Liberal and Labor parties, and membership fees are identical. Australia’s biggest companies are hiding millions of dollars in donations to the major political parties by buying Platinum, Gold and Silver corporate memberships. And it all flies under the radar because none of the money is officially disclosed as political donations.
State Capture: top corporations identified as members of both Liberal and Labor parties
Political party secrecy
Here’s the bit you may not know. And we can thank a certain judge, who will remain nameless, for pointing this out. You may have seen the news about South Australia and Queensland (Labor) State Governments doing a bit of a crackdown on donations. This is a good thing, but the problem is that the companies that front for the parties – both federally and in each state – do not file public accounts. Their financials are a secret.
So what is to stop a donation in Western Australia from being passed through toSouth Australia or Queensland? What is to stop related party transactions? What is to stop a donation in Tasmania from being transferred in a loan or a service fee to the Federal Liberal or Labor party? Nothing.
When they came to power, Labor promised reform. We are still waiting. They did their usual “let’s have a report and not follow the weak recommendations” routine. Would it matter anyway if the states could still secretly funnel payments to the feds?
Even the basic stuff – anything below $16k doesn’t have to be disclosed so you can do ‘donations splitting’, fork out a number of payments beneath that threshold. And due to the once a year only disclosure dump, if you time it right, you can hide your payment for up to 19 months! This is when tomorrow they could change the rules to make donations disclosed live time when they actually happen.
The whole thing is an enormous scam to undermine democracy. To render your vote useless.
Follow the money
When we started MWM eight years ago, one of the main aims was to cover news and public interest journalism that was poorly covered elsewhere. And to follow the money to expose the rise of corporations’ power over democracy. It’s gotten worse, and unless ‘something’ is done about it, it will continue to get worse.
And when we say ‘something’, we mean ban donations entirely. Just stop it. They undermine public confidence in government, simply the knowledge that your vote doesn’t really matter as much as the corporate objectives of some faceless corporation that has ‘paid its dues’.
The way it works is that there is no instantaneous quid pro quo. You don’t so much make a donation and expect a direct return. It’s more about pay-to-play. Get in the game.
Nothing was done to PwC for its garg betrayal and rip-off of Australia because PwC pays its dues when the bagmen for the Liblab come knocking to ‘finance the political process’ every year. As do the other ‘Big 4’ consultancies, Deloitte, EY and KMPG, reaping billions in publicly funded contract work for just a few million in donations.
The bagmen and party treasurers are where the power resides. They raise the money and have a huge say in preselections. If you are good at raising money, join up and represent the people – sorry, the corporations.
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.