Democracy for Sale

Mark Aarons  The Monthly August 2010

Mark Aarons was a senior adviser to the NSW Labor government  from 1996 to 2006.  In his article, The Hollowmen, he said rumours circulated regularly about pressures NSW Labor's head office exerted on various ministerial offices to assist large donors.  He recounts how he was once asked by a senior NSW party official to fix some problems for a large north-coast developer who was a major donor to the ALP.

Norman Thompson  Crikey  22 July 2010

The Warringah Club has organised a "gala" fund raising dinner for Tony Abbott.  For $220 a person, you can meet Abbott, hear radio personality Alan Jones entertain the crowd and participate in the usual raffle and auction at the event. 

But The Warringah Club, which has been embroiled in controversy in the past few years over the lack of transparency of the source of its income, is having all money raised funneled through the NSW Liberal Party head office.  So yet again, the public will never know who are a Liberal Party candidate's financial supporters.

Lee Rhiannon The Drum Unleashed 14 June 2010

NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon challenges Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey's public claims about donations to Labor and the Coalition from the mining industry.

Malcolm Knox Sydney Morning Herald 15 May 2010

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon and Democracy4Sale researcher Dr Norman Thompson have called for an audit into one of Tony Abbott's major political donors for breaches of electoral laws going back to 2001.

Editorial in Melbourne's Age 3 April 2010

After investigative reporter Royce Millar's revelation that the Victorian Labor Party has scrapped plans for a major fund raising event by its' associated entity, Progressive Business, The Age's editorial argues that while political fund-raising bodies such as Progressive Business may be necessary to help swell the party coffers, they should never be seen as a convenient way to do business. In any healthy democracy, political influence must never be bought, but judged impartially and fairly.