Vow to ban secret money

Greens launch policy to add transparency over political donations

THE current state election should be the last one to be tainted by the corrupting influence of secret policial donations , the Greens say.

Tasmania has the weakest laws covering electoral donations in the country, despite pledges from Premier Peter Gutwein that the laws would be reformed.

No donations have been disclosed under a voluntary policy of revealing amounts of $5000 or above.

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said under current law the bulk of donations remained forever secret because of the threshold of $13,700 for

donors to be identified.

“It’s really important to understand that election campaigns should be a contest of ideas and values not of how much money a political party

has been able to obtain from a corporate interest,” she said.

“No company gives money to a political party just because it’s feeling generous.

“There’s always an expectation that there’ll be a quid pro quo of some sort. We need to have a prohibition on donations from developers and foreign donors because that sort of money going into major political parties can corrupt good policy.

“It’s one of the few transparent things about this government that they’re not interested in donations reform because it suits the Liberal Party, to have corporations: big gambling, big mining, big forestry, big fishing, make donations to the Liberal Party.”

The Greens policy includes a cap on political donations, a ban on donations from companies and foreigners, realtime donations disclosure and the public funding of election campaigns.

The Greens would expand parliament to 35 seats, expand the ministry, require the disclosure of all government contracts, leases and licences and create an offence of misconduct in public office.

The policies were costed at $37.5m.

Ms O’Connor said increasing the size of parliament was another policy that would improve outcomes.

“It’s a fundamental of democracy that you need a healthy and viable parliament, and any observer of Tasmania’s parliament will be able to see that a 25 seat house is not functional.

“We’ve seen a premier struggle to put together a cabinet and have to reach into the upper house to fill his cabinet.

“For the size of our population we have one of the smallest parliaments in the world and we think that there’s broad support in the community for restoring the numbers because people can see as such a small parliament, in many ways is dysfunctional.”

NO COMPANY GIVES MONEY TO A POLITICAL PARTY JUST BECAUSE IT’S FEELING GENEROUS