Pollies’ hush-hush funds

TASMANIAN voters will never know the source of the bulk of hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to the state’s political parties in the 2016/17 financial year.

The Australian Electoral Commission has released annual funding disclosures by each of the state’s political parties.

Of the $3.3 million received by the three major parties, the origins of most of their cash receipts will forever remain a mystery.

Under the rules that apply in Tasmania, returns are made only once a year and the source of funds only have to be disclosed if it is greater than $13,200.

It was the governing Liberal Party which topped the earnings list with $2.38 million in receipts, including $25,000 from Midgeon Holdings chaired by Sydney investor Michael Crouch; $25,000 from Pathology Australia; $19,500 from the Pharmacy Guild of Tasmania and $27,500 from mortgage insurance company Genworth.

The Liberals also reported receiving $254,000 from their federal secretariat and $75,000 from the party’s national investment fund.

The returns also noted the receipt of $38,280 from the Australian Taxation Office and $17,000 from the Australian Electoral Commission.

Further donations were revealed in the returns lodged by donors.

The party received $12,600 from the Australian Hotels Association, $11,000 from Macquarie Group and $11,000 from Westpac Bank. The state branch of the Labor Party received $751,411 in 2016/17 — of which the only amounts of more than $13,200 were two contributions totalling $41,396 from the Health and Community Services Union and the Shop Distributors and Allied Employees Union.

The Greens’ Tasmanian branch received $666,000 in donations in 2016/17. The largest single donation was $130,000 from frequent donor Graeme Wood and there were two bequests.

The Jacqui Lambie Net- work received $2750, all of which was disclosed, even though that disclosure was not required.

Tasmania lags behind most other states, which are moving to near real-time online disclosure of donations with much lower thresholds for reporting.

Labor and the Greens have proposed reforms to force more frequent disclosures and lower thresholds.