Comments on: Money money money

By: Ben Raue

Ben Raue — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:30:48 +0000

I don’t think it’s fair to characterise GetUp as either an ALP front or feeder organisation.

Politically it sits between Labor and the Greens, but I don’t actually know if anyone there has explicit links with the ALP (apart from the Director, who was a bureaucrat, not a Young Labor hack).

By: Catherine

Catherine — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:50:23 +0000

More on the topic of GetUp, it strikes me as quite a coincidence that an ALP feeder organisation would want to soften any attempts at funding reform.

The idea of spending limits is interesting, how would you envision this working?

By: Nick C

Nick C — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:37:35 +0000

Just on GetUp! in general, I think the fact that they’ve signed up 300,000 members, raised so much money, and gained such a high profile is a good indication of the potential for online organising to have a similar impact in Aus to what it has had in the US. They’ve only scratched the surface though, and others need to come along and take the next steps.

Whoever wants to set up the more credible and effective successor to GetUp! let me know, I’ll volunteer to help.

By: thewetmale

thewetmale — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:35:56 +0000

Nice post. I think Gartell’s point about a spending cap is important. Just thinking of BO’s campaign in America, i can’t help but think that that will be seen as a standard to measure other fund raising efforts against. That should then be coupled with donation limits like you have mentioned. I think spending limits would also make for more interesting campaigns as parties have to ration their spending.

By: Rationalist

Rationalist — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:55:05 +0000

I don’t think there is any overwhelming impetus to change.

By: Tim Andrews

Tim Andrews — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:30:50 +0000

Ignoring for a minute the inherent problems with the blatant attack on freedom of expression that any proposal to regulate political donations/spending, I just want to note that GetUps position is not not only laughable, it is ridiculously self-serving.
Because it’s obvious that if enacted, one of the biggest beneficiaries would be … GetUp!
As you mentioned yourself, money will simply go to 3rd parties. And we don’t have that many in Australia with the profile and infrastructure of GetUp currently established. Hence the money would be pouring in to GetUp!
This is naked opportunism, and attempting to use the power of the State to suppress your competition, pure and simple.

By: Nick C

Nick C — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:26:59 +0000

Curious timing of their interest in this issue as well. Yet again, they suddenly want to start a campaign on an issue only after senior Labor figures start talking about it.

Increasing transparency as to the sources of their funds might be a good first step if they want some credibility on this specific issue.

On the Canadian system, I seem to recall from when I was researching this a couple of years ago that corporate donations up to $1000 were still permitted to individual candidates. Perhaps that subsequently changed though as I know further changes were being proposed and several elements of their reforms were facing court challenges for alleged breaches of their human rights charter. Is your info more up to date?

There is actually some logic in still allowing tightly capped corporate and union donations to individual candidates, as it gives them somewhere to donate and thus perhaps discourages them from seeking to support third-party campaigns or other more underhand methods of influencing elections. I’m not entirely convinced though, but that does lead to another point, and that is the need for some form of continuous disclosure of donations, so the public can learn who is funding candidates’ campaigns before polling day rather than at least six months later. If, for instance, the fact that high-profile Independent Tim Horan’s campaign for the federal seat of Parkes at the last election was bankrolled to the tune of $50,000 by Manildra had been disclosed prior to polling day it might’ve made for some interesting headlines – was he running to become the ‘Member for Manildra’?

Why is it that I don’t trust the major parties to do campaign finance reform properly? The way the debate in NSW last year panned out was appalling, and wasn’t helped by some terribly uninformed media coverage.