Cold, hard facts

Glenn White (TB10/11) needs to take off his green shaded lenses and absorb some facts. Australia is becoming mired in a morass of legalised political corruption! This corruption comes from the left side of politics and the corporatist billionaires who have thrown many millions of dollars to literally buy seats in the name of “socially correct agendas” that simply serve their own corporate agendas. This democratic corruption doesn’t reside solely in the affluent beachside electorates of Sydney and the equally affluent electorates of inner suburban Melbourne; nor does it exist only at a federal level.

In both Queensland and Victoria political corruption is rife in terms of manipulating the legislative agenda to further the interests of the union and corporatist dominated public arena with the (at least) tacit support of much of the mainstream media.

However, let’s deal with the socalled “TEALS” and their multi million dollar spendathon. Allegra Spender (appropriately named) spent $2,124,058 on her campaign, including $1.9 million in donations, to win Wentworth in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Monique Ryan spent $2,122,231, including a bit over $1.8 million in donations to win the former Liberal stronghold of Kooyong in Melbourne’s inner east. Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel ($1.6 million), North Sydney MP Kylea Tink ($1.4 million) and Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps ($1.2 million) also spent more than $1 million on their campaigns.

They ran matching election campaigns and pushed identical policies, but still claimed to be “independents”. Now it’s revealed that all six of the “TEAL” independents got more than $700,000 each from the same organisation. These “TEALS” were funded largely by the Climate 200 group, led by renewables entrepreneur, Simon Holmes a Court. Climate 200 donated to 19 campaigns with candidates promoting climate action, nine of which were won and ten of which were lost. Disclosures reveal that Climate 200 spent $4.6 million on winning campaigns and $1.3 million on losing campaigns.

In total, Climate 200 raised about $13 million, with Atlassian founders (and like minded Green adventurers) Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-brookes collectively donating more than $2.5 million to the Climate 200 campaign.

So, we are now at a time in politics where we may well surmise that elections at a federal level can be bought – so long as the buyer is to the left of the spectrum and can be tacitly ignored by Unions, the Greens and Labor – as well as a largely sympathetic leftist media.

To me, that borders on political corruption.

DENNIS QUICK, Fishery Falls.