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Canberra Today 12°/15° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Opinion / Donation trail raises questions

LAST month, the lid was blown off the NSW Liberal Party’s money-laundering scheme.

The independent commissioner against corruption uncovered that the Liberal Party’s fundraising machine had used an associated entity, the Free Enterprise Foundation, as well as the Federal Liberal Party, to disguise and launder donations from property developers.

Alex White
UnionsACT secretary Alex White.

As a result of these illegal developer donations, the NSW Electoral Commission is withholding $4.389 million in public funding from the Liberal Party.

The integrity of political donations is central to maintaining public trust in our democratic system.

The widespread and systematic nature of electoral funding fraud by the NSW Liberal Party has seriously eroded the goodwill and trust amongst everyday people.

It is essential to Canberra’s democracy that we have utmost confidence in the local disclosure regime.

In NSW, it is illegal for political parties to receive donations from property developers. It is not illegal in Canberra. And that’s why the Canberra Liberals have pocketed almost $100,000 since 2013 from property developers and construction companies and executives.

Similarly, the Canberra Liberals received three donations amounting to more than $255,000 from the same Federal Liberal Party found by ICAC to have laundered illegal donations to the NSW Liberals.

This would not be cause for concern, except that the Canberra Liberals were fined in 2013 by the ACT Electoral Commission $16,500 for failures regarding electoral funding disclosures. They are the first and only political party to ever have been fined for this offence.

The fine related to what Liberal Party officials claimed were administrative errors that resulted in untimely declarations.

Nonetheless, those administrative problems appear to have occurred around the same time that the Federal Liberal Party was laundering illegal donations for the NSW Liberal Party.

Under the ACT Electoral Act, political parties like the Canberra Liberals cannot spend more than $10,000 in funding from associated political parties, like the Federal Liberal Party. Yet they received more than $255,000 in donations from their Federal party.

There are serious questions about whether the Canberra Liberals, purposely or because of their admitted administrative failures during this time, failed to comply with donation laws. Before the revelations from ICAC, this was hypothetical. Now, I believe it is a real possibility.

Unlike in NSW, the ACT Electoral Commission reviews the funding disclosures of political parties just once or twice a year. This year, the review will be in November. After the ACT election. The evidence from NSW demonstrates that this is insufficient.

Canberra Liberal leader Jeremy Hanson has made much about integrity in the past six months, as well as made some extreme accusations against people he considers his enemies. He has set himself a very high standard to measure up to.

It is important that Canberrans have confidence that the toxic, corrupt culture that pervades the NSW political scene does not come to our city.

Alex White is secretary of UnionsACT

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