60 Reasons to Protest: Reason #42 – Political Donations
Most parties receive large sums of donations from corporations to help fund their election campaigns and day-to-day activities. In return, those corporate donors get access to politicians and directly influence their policy platforms. They sit with them at fancy “fundraising” luncheons, cash-for-access dinners, and meet with them at Parliament House.
Labor and the LNP received $267 million in political donations over the last decade. Of that, about $1.14 million were donated by the aviation industry: $592,465 went to the Liberal/National Coalition and $551,310 to Labor. (Source)
Brisbane Airport Corporation donated $12,600 to Labor between 2010 and 2019. However, this stopped roughly around the same time that political campaigner provisions were introduced into the Electoral Act in 2018. What happened next?
BAC Chairperson David Peever is also a director of the Business Council of Australia, and they in turn are a Political Campaigner. So in the FY 2019/2020, records show that BAC contributed a whopping $77,916 to the Business Council of Australia, which added up to more than $13 million at their disposal to lobby parties and influence policy platforms and elections.
The Centre for Public Integrity explains how this “whitewashing” or political money laundering works:
“Many of the entities making these [political donation] payments [such as BAC] have long-abandoned the practice of making payments directly to political parties and promote this as meaning that they do not, in fact, make political donations;however, insofar as the raison d’être of political campaigners is the reason for which payments made to them are disclosable under the Electoral Act, there is a legitimate question to be asked about the ethical implications of an entity publicly vaunting its policy of not making political donations(presumably in an effort to show that it is not unduly influencing politics), at the same time as it is making substantial payments to bodies which are treated as political campaigners under electoral law.” (page 2)
(Source)
Check out all the elected Members of Parliament who have voted consistently against increasing transparency of big business by making information public.
What are the chances that political donations and corporate lobbying have a key role to play in making sure that Brisbane Airport gets the best treatment from federal, state and local governments while Catherine King MP, the responsible Minister has abandoned Brisbane communities?
It’s time to protest!
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