Democracy for Sale

MEDIA RELEASE - 30 March 2010

Commenting on the millions of dollars in the election campaign war chests of Labor and the Coalition, Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has called on Premier Kristina Keneally to publicly state that legislation to reform political funding will be in place before the next election. (SMH, page 5, http://bit.ly/c7oJXU)

27 February 2010  Sydney Morning Herald & The Age

Adele Ferguson and Eric Johnston investigate the many ways pharmaceutical companies buy influence in Canberra - including hiring former government staffers both internally and externally, lobbying, issuing ads and making huge political contributions to the major parties.

As Greens MP Lee Rhiannon says is the article, there is a real risk good public policy-making is distorted as a result of these pharmaceutical donations to government.

10 February 2010  Central

Robert Burton-Bradley has carefully investigated many of the issues surrounding the controversy about Cr Mallard voting on two development applications from a large donor to his campaign for the Sydney Council election.  The NSW Election Funding Authority confirms the donations went to Mallard.  Sydney Council CEO Monica Barone only referred Mallard's self referral about his vote on the DAs to the Department of Local Government.  For some reason Barone did not sent a complete complaint submitted by a local resident to the Department.  The resident now has gone to the Department and the case has been re-opened on Mallard possibly beaching Sydney Council's code of conduct.  Read this article below and Burton-Bradley's earlier article on the same matter on 2 February 2010.