Property Developer's Donations to
Political Parties in Australia
Our political parties need money to run, pay office rent, phone bills
etc and the way our system is supposed to work is that wealthy people
or companies or organizations will give donations, more or less as a
public service to assist our parties to function, without necessarily
wanting any specific favours in return. The Australian
Electoral Commission (AEC) publishes data on donations on its website
and these can be searched in various ways. You need time and a
system for recording what you find. This page by Coastal
Independents supporters you can email us at
coastal(at sign)hush.ai
We will just outline a hypothetical case that we are most likely
to find acceptable. Just for example, say a company gave
each of the main parties one donation of say $50,000 each year.
That
situation might fit the bill for the desirable situation where the
money
is given infrequently, more or less at arms length, without there being
evidence of interaction between the company and parties.
We
have put many hours in searching various property developers names and
have been alarmed to find an explosion in the volume of donations in
recent years. We also find that there is usually dozens of small
amounts given out, sometimes for odd sums, chanelled through several
company entities, all of which we see as obvious signs of
frequent interaction between property developers and political
parties. Can we seriously entertain the notion that these large
aggregate sums are being given out of some altruistic notion that the
Australian public deserves better funded political parties ? We
think not. Our conclusion is that property developers are
finding it useful to build close relations to Australian
political parties. It is interesting that Mirvac shows a large
increase in donations for the 1999/2000 year when in late 2000 the
Sydney Olympics took place. The years refer to financial years,
so 1999 is 1998/1999 on the AEC search pages. We have also
researched the volume of union
donations compared to property and thank the NSW Greens for
their breakdown of total donations into industry sectors over the last
five years. See link below to their web site. We have also researched
CFMEU donation ourselves on the AEC seach site, see links below.
The public should be concerned at the burgeoning largesse handed out by
developers and that laws governing AEC reporting must be tightened to
make it encumbent on each company, particularly each Australian
Stock Exchange (ASX) listed company, to account in one list each
year for all donations from it and all controlled entities. As things
stand now companies can give money in the name of obscure
subsidiaries making it very hard for the public to get at the
truth. All monies donated or payments for services, payments of
an type must be listed regardless of size. Only full
disclosure, promptly publicaly available will make
it difficult for developers to pay for political favours.
Lets just be realistic here, every DAY property developers and
their legal teams are investigating for new profitable opportunites
to construct their developments, often near our coastline. This
is
what we expect them to be doing but we expect our various levels of
Government to be looking after the public interest. However, the
public has to realise that we only find out about developer's plans
when they are at an advanced stage and the relevant council is forced
to make their plans public. Usually not too long after this the public
is given a ridiculously short period of time in which to comment on
proposals. At this point the developers have had months or years
to work with the various levels of
Government to smooth the rough edges of any sticky proposals, no doubt
wining
& dining is happening and general smooching. Obviously by this time
the councils and developer have formed a closer relationship and it can
be hard for busy members of the public to get on top of complex issues
and
articulate what they see as failings in proposals. Experience
shows
that the only way developers plans can be altered is by serious numbers
of
people becoming engaged in a campaign in a way that politicians fear
their voting power.
Because of the obvious desirability of coastal real estate,
developers are frequently seeking opportunities near the coast
and of course the value of their finished product, land or housing
units is enhanced by proximity to the coast . Naturally
developers push the envelope to the limit in trying to maximise the
profitability of coastal developments and this can lead to the public
amenity of beaches and coastal areas and the amenity of existing
residents, being degraded. These sorts of issues are giving rise
to widespread concern in Perth coastal suburbs leading to the formation
of several local action groups (see links).
Links
Rockiecoast
blog
SaveSouthBeach
Fremantle
campaign
NSW Greens website
exposing details of donations to political parties
Various pages from Crikey.com detailing political donations
http://www.crikey.com.au/politics/2005/02/03-0003.html
http://www.crikey.com.au/politics/2004/02/02-0002.html
http://www.crikey.com.au/politics/2003/02/03-donations.html
Australian
Electoral Commission search pages to start your time consuming
investigation of who is giving what to whom.
