The Tasmania Greens today said it was disappointing but unsurprising that the Tasmanian Liberal Party had received another large cash handout from their friends at Big Tobacco.
Greens Leader Nick McKim MP said that today’s release of the previous year’s political donations report by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) showed that the Liberals received $22,000 from British American Tobacco and $15,900 from Phillip Morris.
Mr McKim said the figures could be the tip of the iceberg, because current disclosure laws do not require political parties to provide a complete or up-to-date picture of the donations they receive.
“As the only state party still accepting tobacco company political donations, any credibility the Liberals might have sought on public health policy has gone up in smoke,” Mr McKim said.
“British American Tobacco, Phillip Morris and the Tasmanian Liberal Party continue to be friends-with-benefits, which explains the Liberals’ reprehensible stance against a ban on tobacco company donations.”
“Last year the Greens’ secured Labor’s support for a motion expressing in-principle support for a ban on tobacco companies making political donations, which the Liberals opposed, and at the time the Attorney-General, Brian Wightman, promised to release a discussion paper.”
“That discussion paper still has not been released and the state’s political donations remain murky.”
“The best way to end Big Tobacco’s influence in politics is to prevent all political parties and individuals from accepting any money from these corporations.”
Mr McKim also said state-based political donation reform was vital, but that successive Attorneys General have dropped the ball on Labor’s commitments to reform political donations.
“Under the previous Attorney-General, David Bartlett, Labor committed to reform political donations and release a public discussion paper, including capping political donations, but this still hasn’t materialised,” Mr McKim said.
“The disclosure threshold of $11,500 means that the public is not provided with a full picture of who is paying money to whom, because a vested interest can make multiple donations below this amount and the public is none the wiser.”
“Current disclosure laws also mean that the AEC’s latest figures are out of date by the time they are published.”
“Real-time donations disclosure and capped political donations are the answer. The Greens want to tighten up political donations in Tasmania and are clear on how to do so, but for these reforms to happen, Labor needs to move on this issue,” said Mr McKim.
Excerpt from Parliamentary debate on banning political donations by Big Tobacco, Sept 28, 2011:
Attorney-General, Brian Wightman MP: Mr Deputy Speaker, I look forward to continuing the work on this discussion paper and I look forward to the public response it will garner once released. I am keen to hear from the Tasmanian people regarding what they feel about donation disclosure, and at what level they feel that a donation must be disclosed.
See for yourself:
AEC, HERE
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• STATE-BASED POLITICAL DONATION REFORM BY NEXT ELECTION
Wightman Can Start Now By Releasing Discussion Paper
Nick McKim MP
Greens Leader
The Tasmanian Greens today have called for a state-based political donations scheme to be in place by the next election, in light of the millions donated to the Liberal and Labor parties in 2010-2011 by vested interests, revealed by the Australian Electoral Commission’s latest political donations figures,
Greens Leader Nick McKim MP said Tasmania is one of the few remaining states which doesn’t have separate state-based political donations disclosure laws, and that Labor is dragging its feet on taking promised action.
Mr McKim also challenged Liberal Leader Will Hodgman MP to return any donations received by Big Tobacco if he is genuine about reassuring Tasmanians that such donations do not influence Liberal policy.
“Tasmania deserves the best quality democracy the state can provide but Tasmania’s voters remain in the dark about who is giving how much to which political party,” Mr McKim said.
“The Greens are determined to ensure that by the next state election Tasmanians will know who has donated what to whom by the time they go to the ballot box.”
“Under the federal laws, only donations of $11, 500 or above need to be disclosed, which means there may be many more donations the public are never informed of, and due to the time lag in reporting it can sometimes be up to 18 months before the donations received are disclosed publicly.”
“Other states and the ACT have moved on their own political donations schemes rather than just rely on the federal requirements which are the only ones that apply to Tasmania.”
“In 2008, then-Premier Paul Lennon supported the Greens’ political donations reform and agreed to refer the issue to the Working Arraignments of Parliament Committee. Nothing happened.”
“In 2009, then-Premier David Bartlett published his 10-point democracy plan which included political donations reform, and said he would release a public discussion paper. Nothing happened.”
“In 2011, current Attorney-General, Brian Wightman, said, during the Greens’ debate on banning political donations by Big Tobacco, that he would issue Bartlett’s public discussion paper. Nothing happened.”
“Political donations can be capped in the stroke of a pen and real-time political donations can be revealed in the click of a mouse. These reforms are straightforward and low-cost.”
“Tasmania risks looking a pariah, with the majority of the states taking action on this issue. Labor must release its discussion paper and start the reform of political donations in Tasmania before the next election. Tasmanian voters have been left in the dark long enough,” said Mr McKim.
Download: Fact Sheet: Political Donations schemes in Australian States & ACT, Nick McKim MP, February 2012:
Feb2_FACTSHEET_Political_Donations-State_by_State_N_McKim_ATTACH.pdf
• Paul Barry, The Power Index:
Greens meet Libs on donations hypocrisy
Paul Barry
Thursday, 02 February 2012
Mining billionaire and would-be National Living Treasure Clive Palmer gave almost $1 million to the Coalition and LNP last year, according to Australian Electoral Commission figures published yesterday.
That matches the $1 million he gave in 2009-10 and the $840,000-odd he ponied up the previous year.
So whatever happened to the Liberals’ resolve to take no more Palmer handouts? Two years ago, in February 2010, the Liberals’ Senator Michael Ronaldson, then shadow special minister of state, was asked about Palmer’s donation by the Courier Mail and replied via a spokesman: “It creates a perception of undue influence over a political party. We don’t believe donations of that size are appropriate for the future.”
But gee it’s hard to say no when those big cheques pop through the letterbox, especially when the blokes at Queensland’s LNP (which got $635,000) are opening half the mail.
The Power Index asked Senator Ronaldson this morning to explain why the Libs hadn’t sent Palmer’s money back. His reply, through another spokesman, was, “the original comments were unauthorised, and that was made clear at the time”. Well, well.
Meanwhile, over in Greenland, sorry make that Greens land, the party coffers were swollen by an even bigger $1.7 million donation from internet multi-millionaire, Graeme Wood, the founder of Wotif, who recently bought that Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania for $10 million so he can close it down.
Could this be the same Greens Party, we wondered, that runs the excellent website Democracy for Sale, which urges a ban on big political donations?
And could one of its leading lights be Lee Rhiannon, who wrote in a 2010 op-ed piece, “Australian democracy has been diminished by more than a decade of political donations bankrolling Labor and the Coalition parties.”
Indeed, could it even be the same Lee Rhiannon who issued a shocked press release yesterday about how much money political parties are getting?
Surely not. I mean wouldn’t that be a little hypocritical?
Meanwhile, the biggest donors and spenders in the political arena in the 2010-11 financial year included all the usual suspects. The big tobacco companies spent $14 million on fighting plain packaging; the Minerals Council of Australia and the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies spent $6.2 million savaging the Mining Resource Rent Tax (on top of the $17 million they spent the year before); the ACTU spent $6.5 million on campaigning for the labour movement, GetUp! spent a hefty $5 million, and Clubs NSW spent $1 million in the early days of its campaign to kill Andrew Wilkie’s pokie reforms.
Most of those organisations also gave generously to the political parties. And as far as we know, none sent any money back. The Liberals and Nationals even accepted around $250,000 from Big Tobacco.
If you want to see the full list, it’s here
