Donations and corruption.
Sue Brooks August 3rd, 2009
Is it possible to donate to an individual or political party and not cast a seed of doubt about what is expected in return? I personally do not think so. Our political system is heavily geared towards a donation culture. It continues to amaze me that politicians from all levels of government, can accept donations and honestly believe that doing so does not find them obligated in any way to the donor. If donations are to remain an aspect of our political system, and I believe that they shouldn’t, then donations should be anonymous. Any other means of providing financial or other support to a particular candidate or political party, in my opinion, smacks of potential conflicts of interest.
Why is it acceptable that mums and dads want to be able to support the party of their choice by donating a small amount of money but an organisation donating bucket loads of cash is not welcomed? In other words to be consistent we need to either set up a system where donations can be done anonymously or, my preferred solution, make elections a set process with a limited advertising budget funded by the tax payer. If all candidates were regulated so that they all received equal advertising space and/or time, wouldn’t the electorate be much more able to make a choice based on qualities other than how wealthy the candidate or political party is?
Lastly I abhor corruption, dishonesty and lies. I think that all layers of Government in this country are very heavily developer and big business influenced. It seems that the ‘bigger is better’ and ‘greed is good’ culture is alive and well in Australia. Many, many small business owners are content to quietly and without fuss, do a hard days work for a decent annual income but big business and developers often want more and more and more. More business and more development. Not to benefit the community but to make more profit for a select few! It is time we acknowledged that growth is not necessary to develop a healthy economically rich and culturally diverse country, and that pandering to a select few is not actually what the majority of residents want from our political leaders. From personal experience the most intense lobbying that I receive, is from developer related interests.
Over to you…
- What do you think?
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