Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Little? Senator Abetz was, for a while, the minister responsible for this bill. When asked by Sydney’s Sun-Herald for the reasons why the Howard government wanted to raise the threshold for reporting political donations, Senator Abetz was quoted as saying:

... in the good old days people used to donate to the Liberal Party via lawyers’ trust accounts ...

Which good old days were those? Were they the bottom of the harbour good old days? Are they the days that Senator Abetz misses so much? We can only guess. With this bill, the Howard government is inviting suspicion that influence can be bought. Perhaps this is the case.

In an article on page 15 of the Age on 24 May 2006, a former Howard government adviser claimed that corporate money does have an impact on the operation of the executive when he said:

Staff and MPs are encouraged to engage with donors. Not a week would go by without hearing the phrase, ‘They are a good supporter,’ ...

This is totally unacceptable, and begs the question: just how much access and engagement does being a ‘good supporter’ of the Howard government get a person, a company or some other vested interest? Australia’s political system must be open and honest and also appear open and honest to the public if democracy is going to work. Yet I have not heard one single argument from the Liberal senators opposite as to how democracy or the public is served by having less transparency and less scrutiny of donations of money to political parties.

I can only imagine that Senator Abetz and his Liberal Party cronies think that there is some untapped market of people out there who have a lazy 10 grand to throw around and would give it to the Liberal Party if only no-one knew about it. It is easy to understand why someone would be ashamed of wanting to give money to the likes of Senator Abetz and his cronies. It is easy to understand why someone would want to keep it a dirty little secret, away from public scrutiny. Before Senator Abetz lost ministerial control of this bill—