Inaugural Political Donations Academy Awards
For Outstanding Efforts!
The Donor Kebab Prize - For the comment made by a donor most likely to make you feel sick. The winner is John Thorpe from the Hotels Association
REPORTER: Do you think they listen to you because you give good donations?
JOHN THORPE, HOTELS ASSOCIATION: Look, democracy's not cheap. Democracy's not cheap. And your firm and your company -- everybody's involved with assisting political parties because at this stage we need to keep these people in place to have the democracy we have today. (ABC TV Stateline program, 20/02/2004)
(Congratulations John Thorpe! But what we want to know is, what does he mean by ..." we need to keep these people in place to have the democracy we have today."? Exactly what sort of people is he talking about?!)
Philip Morris and British Tobacco companies have won a prestigious award for donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the major parties and doing their best to influence public health policies. They are awarded with ...
THE GRIM REAPER AWARD for Contributions to Public Health
Congratulations Philip Morris and British Tobacco, this is the acknowledgement that you richly deserve.
JAMES HARDIE - This corporation showed tremendous amounts of generosity in donating buckets of loot to the major parties. Unfortunately they had trouble finding any generosity for their workers who were dying of asbestos related lung diseases.
Congratulations James Hardie, you have won ...
The Attila the Hun Prize for Business Ethics.
THE SUPREME ACADEMY AWARD FOR GRAND THEFT AND SNOUTS IN THE TROUGH.
The winners are ...
The ENTIRE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT! Why? For setting up the laws to give themselves $1.94 of public money for every vote they get. This has amounted to tens of millions of dollars of YOUR money given to the political parties. YOUR money is then used to fund their crass advertisements aimed at misinforming YOU.
The Joint Select Committee on Electoral reform said in their 1983 report that;
"The majority of the Committee believes that it is in the interests of a democratic system to use public funding to remove the necessity or temptation to seek funds that may come with conditions imposed or implied."
Yet since the introduction of public funding in 1984, the share of private to public funding has risen from approximately 65% public to 35% private to a situation where Labor and the Coalition are now receiving well over 80% of their funds from private sources! It's been over twenty years since the introduction of public funding of elections and instead of reducing the reliance on private funding, the major parties are receiving exponentially more money from private interests .... But they still have their snouts firmly into the public trough.
For contribution to family values, The Sir Les Patterson Award goes to The Australian Hotels Association, along with the entire pub industry through all their various front organizations, for donating in such a big way. Special commendation for their efforts towards cultural advancement by lobbying for more poker machines into pubs and unrestricted smoking in bars. Well done blokes!
The Sir Joh "don't you worry about that" Award goes to ... the Managing Director of Australand Developments who described his corporation's donations as "part and parcel of doing business." (OK, but we'd like to know more about what was in the parcel.)
Steve Bracks, the Premier of Victoria is the runner-up here for this comment;
"I think both parties have accepted donations from a wide range of organizations, including Philip Morris. It's not in any way, in any sense, influencing any action of government."
Yeh, sure Steve.
MANILDRA FLOUR MILLS has won a special award.
In 2003 Manildra Flour Mills gave $200,000 to the Liberal Party, $110,000 to the Nationals and $50,000 to Labor. Manildra's chief executive chairman, Dick Honan, lobbied the Coalition Government for favorable tax treatment of ethanol and to oppose Labor plans to remove the current excise exemption on ethanol. On the 12th of September, Prime Minister John Howard announced a 38.5 cents-per-liter excise on all ethanol. Dick Honan's company is now receiving about $2 million a month in excise.
For this effort they have won ...
THE GREASY PALM AWARD
"The Spit-the-Dummy and Pull- the-Plug Prize" goes to the NSW clubs lobby group. After winning the 2003 election, Bob Carr's Labor Government announced poker machine tax increases that angered the club movement - and the ALP paid a price, literally. The clubs' lobby group, Clubs NSW, cut its donations to the ALP from nearly $160,000 in 2001-02 down to a mere $11,000 in 2002-03. Yes indeed, they certainly did Spit-the-Dummy and Pull-the-Plug.
This contrasts with the State Liberals experience. The Liberals gave political support for the clubs' position and were amply awarded with an increase in donations from zero in 2001-02 to almost $115,000 in 2002-03.
THE 'SMOKE AND MIRRORS' SNEAKY AWARD
This special award goes to both the ALP and Liberal Parties who have a very special relationship with a number of shady front organizations which allow donors of vast amounts of money to mask their identity.
These donors, such as the Liberal's Cormack Foundation and Labor's John Curtin House operate as fundraising enterprises to provide an anonymous cash flow for the major parties. Under the laws the major parties have created to benefit themselves, these front organizations are not bound to disclose how they originally raised all their money. That is, who originally donated to them. Now that's sneaky.
The Smooth Talker Award goes to ... Leighton Developments chief executive Wal King, for his reasons for donating buckets of loot to both ALP and Liberal parties,
"If you don't do it, there's a chance of getting a black mark against your name. It's like giving your wife flowers - why wouldn't you do it?"
Sydney Morning Herald 02/02/2002
THE BALANCED THINKING AWARD goes to ...
Lend Lease developers spokesperson: "The board always tries to donate equal amounts (to both political parties) and regards it as supporting the democratic process which is necessary to preserve the society in which Lend Lease carries out is business.", (The Daily Telegraph, 06/02/2000).
Postscript: According to Lend Lease they no longer make political donations because of the "perception that it seemed to conjure up in the industry of what you got in return." (The Financial Review, 13/10/2003)
Well hallelujah!
Would you like to nominate a party, person or corporation for a prize? We are happy to publicise any outstanding contribution.