Over the weekend, Fairfax ran a story about how Chinese interests are playing an increasing role in Australian political donations:
A Chinese government-backed propaganda unit and a swag of companies that stand to gain from the China Australia Free Trade Agreement have made more than half a million dollars of political donations in Victoria, raising concerns about the influence of foreign donors.
Companies linked to Chinese conglomerate Yuhu Group made a donation to then trade minister Andrew Robb’s fundraising entity the day the trade deal was clinched.
Chinese money has become so important to Australian political parties that, at a recent glitzy fundraiser, Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger made sure there was an interpreter to translate the auction.
Donors with strong links to China contributed $555,000 to the two major parties and fundraising entities in Victoria, a Fairfax Media analysis of Australian Electoral Commission data for 2014-15 reveals…
Meanwhile, the Victorian Liberals received $15,000 from the China Australia Media Group, believed to be an arm of the Chinese government. The group has twice been outed for hiring Western journalists at news conferences to ask soft questions of government ministers and officials with the aim of spreading Chinese propaganda.
Chinese property developers have also emerged as generous supporters of political parties. In 2013-14, a pair of Brighton property investors with import-export interests Jianping Fu and Min Zhang, donated $200,000 to the Victorian Labor party. Melbourne-based property developer the Ever Bright Group donated $200,000 to the federal Liberal party and Glen Waverley developer Jiandong Huang donated another $100,000…
As reported in the ABC today, former Liberal federal treasurer, Michael Yabsley, has now called for an overhaul of the political fundraising system:
“I believe this is now crunch time. You have the damage that has been done to the reputations of many, many individuals, to the reputations of many companies and the reputations of the major political parties,” he told Four Corners in an exclusive interview that will air tonight.
“It all points to the absolute case to do away with the system of political fundraising that we currently have.”
In 2010, allegedly prohibited donations from property developers were channelled through a federal entity, the Free Enterprise Foundation (FEF), back to the Liberal Party in New South Wales. Mr Yabsley was the party’s federal treasurer at the time.
He said at the time, he was “sanguine” about what the FEF was doing.
“Now looking back on it … those practices are not acceptable and should not have been acceptable in the past,” he said…
Tonight, ABC’s Four Corners will air a report, entitled Money and Influence, which will examine Australia’s opaque system of campaign finance and political donations. As noted in the preview for the report:
“We have a system where giving money can influence outcomes and that’s a soft form of corruption… What’s at stake is simply the quality of our democracy and the ability of people to have faith in their political institutions.”
Let’s hope the segment shines a bright light on Australia’s political donation system so that we can ascertain who is pulling our leaders’ strings.
Watch the report tonight at 8.30pm on ABC 1, or later on iView.
