Time to take the cash out of politics

I sent the article below to several of our current Cairns City councillors and received a reply from Cr Paul Freebody: "I must take the time to congratulate you on your sense of humor!" No Paul, I am quite serious.

Time to take the cash of out politics
David Humphries
18 January 2008, Sydney Morning Herald

Jack Lang was on the mark. In the human race, he advised, always put your money on self-interest; you can be sure it's the only starter always trying. Lang's aphorism, forged in the cauldron of political fisticuffs and intrigue back when he ruled NSW, is no more true than in his chosen field.

I mean this not as some cheap throwaway to cynicism about politics, where altruism has remained remarkably resilient in the face of overbearing pressure to view every action and inaction in terms of personal or party advantage.

However, occasionally the political master class is presented with an opportunity where self-interest is served by doing the right thing, where levelling the race track not only serves the national good but its own, too.

One such opportunity is repair of the mire that is our laws governing electoral donations, and their associated link to the ever-spiralling price of effective competition in election campaigns, now costing taxpayers and candidates perhaps $100 million each federal outing - the equivalent of $7 for each vote on offer.

Antagonists to reform say that politics is a free market, and that those who best convey their message are entitled to triumph. That, of course, is a self-interest argument because democracy is underpinned by two notions: equal access to the market and the right of each voter to be regarded as equal in the outcome of elections, not just in participation in them.

Outcomes are uneven because powerful lobbies - business, unions, media, single-interest groups of all makes and colours - get to be heard over the rest. Sometimes this is because they are well-organised, articulate, resourceful, determined, and these are not characteristics that government has any role in dismantling.

However, there is one area where government can and should square this ledger.

How? Canada, a nation that shares our political heritage and structures, is a good lead. It limits donations from corporations and unions to $1000, pegs election spending and, like 40 other countries (including the US, but not Australia) prohibits foreign donations.

It limits to a relatively paltry sum advertising by "third parties" - lobby groups, individuals, companies and others at only arms length from the political machines they endorse. The big, direct spending by unions and big business in last year's federal campaign comes to mind.

If any voter thinks they need the same propaganda pushed down their eyes and ears 50 or 100 times for them to make a considered choice of candidate, it surely reflects a paucity in their understanding of policy cause and effect, not the need for advertising barrages often built on glib misinformation and always on self-interest.

It is in the self-interest of minor parties to advocate change. That does not mean Lee Rhiannon and Norman Thompson, of the NSW Greens, did not correctly identify the link in big donors corrupting the political process when they penned an article for the online magazine New Matilda in 2006.

"Access is power, and money brings access to politicians in our country," they wrote. "Ordinary citizens don't have this access, and this leads many to feel alienated from the workings of government."

Of course money buys access. The corrupted American lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who doled out millions in client dollars to compliant politicians, acknowledged: "Eventually, money wins in politics."

A poll of business leaders in the US in 2000 found two in five nominated beneficial legislative consideration among their motives for donating.

However, one needs nothing more than commonsense to know big donations do not come without expectations. The hotels boss John Thorpe acknowledged in 2004 that "democracy isn't cheap". Certainly the type of democracy he practises is not. During the preceding five years, in which hotel profits skyrocketed, thanks mostly to gambling accommodations by the State Government, the Australian Hotels Association gave Labor more than $500,000. Individual publicans gave more than $2 million.

When NSW registered clubs got anxious about a tax on their pokie profits, they swung their donations to the Coalition, which fought on their behalf.

As Special Minister of State responsible for electoral law, John Faulkner is drafting legislation to undo manifestly self-serving changes made by the Howard government in 2006. The raising of the threshold at which donors must be identified from $1500 to $10,000 will be reversed. The tax benefit allowed to donors will be reduced, and the use of public funding - $2.10 for each vote secured by a candidate who achieves at least 4 per cent of the vote - will be more closely scrutinised to ensure it is spent on electioneering, and not pocketed.

Closure of the electoral roll immediately on issue of the writs - rather than the previous seven-days grace - will be relaxed. This was presented by the Howard government as an attack on electoral fraud (a virtually non-existent malady), but was in fact an attempt to limit enfranchisement of the young, whose votes favour Labor.

And the use of taxpayer-funded propaganda will be limited by Auditor-General oversight. Over its term, the Howard government spent $2 billion, mostly aggrandising itself at our expense. As it got more desperate the spend escalated.

However, that is it, "at this stage", Faulkner says. It is not enough.

At the risk of me appearing naive, a new federal Government willing to tackle perceptions and realities of how big donors unduly influence decision-makers would be a fresh statement of true national leadership.

The Government has within its legislative authority the ability to shame opponents into compliance, to drag the states similarly into line, and to restore some public confidence in the process intended to serve the public. In so doing, it might just enhance its standing as honest broker, and serve its self-interest. Now, there's a quinella worth betting on.