Make money talk
THE Senator had been pulling focus.
The government had worked itself into a lather with the “un-Australian angle”. There was no official investigation. No charges laid and no new evidence. But with Bennelong polling as a 50-50 race, it was clear on Tuesday that Sam Dastyari (pictured) had to go.
Within seconds of the Senator falling on his sword his name was trending on Twitter. Within hours the backbenchers were hustling for their own self-righteous patch of social media real estate.
Locally, our Honourable Member for Corangamite, Sarah Henderson, took to Twitter and told her 4904 followers that Corio MP Richard Marles was not up to the job of Shadow Minister.
“In not rebuking @samdastyari, @RichardMarlesMP has not put Australia’s interests first and failed the test as an alternate defence minister.”
It was an unsurprising swipe but a complicated confluence. The refusal to “rebuke” did not endanger Australia, nor did it tell us anything about Mr Marles’ competency.
Both sides protect their own to the death. That’s Australian politics. Mr Marles did not respond. He did not even mention the name “Dastyari” to his 16,500 followers.
Ms Henderson is drawing a long bow of false equivalence. But the personal attack is a clear reminder of where foreign donations have taken us. We have gotten out of the political trenches and fallen into the nationalistic gutter.
Only a few days ago these two MPs shared a photo-op. All smiles. Both in GFC scarves, kicking the footy on the front lawn of parliament house. That collegiality was clearly a rehearsed anomaly; a staged promotion of the “winning from second” doctrine of Geelong.
The Dastyari resignation was a long time coming. But his exit stage-left gives us more questions than answers.
He had apparently warned a Chinese businessman to leave his phone inside to avoid being bugged by ASIO. This is what brought about the fury from the far right. But how do we know Dastyari said this? Where did this information come from? Who is behind it?
The Prime Minister was asked this on Q&A on Monday night. Rather than come clean, he took for the hills. He reassured Virginia Trioli that the story did not come from any government minister. So, where has it leaked from?
It wasn’t Dastyari. But this hasn’t stopped the mud-slinging. The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton is so convinced of treachery that he labelled the Senator a “double agent”. Surely this requires some evidence of espionage?
Dastyari was not in government when the exchange took place.
So, will the Mem- ber for Corangamite be tweeting her full support for a full investigation? Because now, thanks to a disclosure form lodged with The Ryde Council in Sydney, we know we need one.
Mr Huang was generous with his political donations. His companies gave money to both sides of the fence. On June 23 last year the beneficiary was the Senator Mathias Cormann Campaign. They received $20,000 from Chaoshan No. 1 Pty Ltd. Days before this (on June 14) the same company donated $30,000 to NSW Labor Federal Campaign. They also made a $20,000 donation to the Liberal Deakin Federal Election Campaign and chipped in $10,000 for the Member for Canning, Andrew Hastie. The list is longer and publicly available.
The landscape of donations is littered with last-minute dumpster dives for coin. It is time we stopped the name-calling and got serious about an independent investigation. Who is benefit- ing from the cold cash? Legend has it that in the dying days of the last federal election, the single greatest political donor dipped into his private reserves and donated over a million dollars to the Liberal Party campaign to get Malcolm Turnbull into power. Australians still don’t know exactly how much Malcolm invested in his own party because we don’t have real time revelations. We get to find out in the next financial year just how much the Prime Minister wanted to win the top job. That will be a long time after the Bennelong by-election. We may have a new government by then. But right now, if backbenchers are so concerned about the national interest, let’s see how serious they are about setting the wheels of investigation into motion. Now’s the time to tweet a line in the sand and pass serious legislation that makes it a crime to accept money without real time revelation. No need for a non-binding survey on this one. Just get it done.