In the wake of Sam Dastyari’s resignation from the frontbench, now we have a new and welcome standard in political donations in Australia. But what that standard is, exactly, isn’t clear — because Dastyari didn’t do anything that wasn’t perfectly legal.
The Coalition and some in the media (where there is gloating about their role in his resignation, even though the mainstream media relies on political donations, channelled into political advertising spending, to prop up their businesses) insist that it’s somehow different that Dastyari had a bill paid by a donor. That appears to assume that money given for one purpose somehow magically can’t be used for a different purpose — cash is funny like that.
Or is it that Dastyari — though he denies this — appeared to adjust his position on the South China Sea to suit that of his donors? In which case, what about the Liberals receiving millions from the big banks and protecting them from a royal commission and trying to dismantle the Future of Financial Advice reforms? Or Labor receiving millions from manufacturing unions and trying to prop up manufacturing? Once you admit that donations can influence policy positions, there seems an awful lot of it about.
But even if we don’t know exactly what the new standard is, rest assured that someone else is going to come under the same pressure as Dastyari, because there was plenty of worse behaviour under the old standard than that of the junior senator from NSW, and the sums involved have a lot more zeroes in them. Here’s a bunch of people who behaved perfectly legally and broke no rules but who should have considered their positions given the ethical issues involved.
Kevin Rudd: Not merely did Rudd, like his Labor colleagues, take a trip to China in opposition with the tab picked up by ALP donor and Chinese Communist Party-linked Beijing Aust-China, but he took a trip to Africa on their dime as well (and scored that honourable source of political gift controversy, a bottle of Grange). Of course, those close links with Chinese tycoons didn’t help China’s cause once Rudd was in government, but it’s the principle, eh?
Tony Abbott, Stuart Robert and Ian Macfarlane: All three were given Rolex watches worth tens of thousands a pop by Chinese billionaire Li Ruipeng in the lead-up to the 2013 election, and kept them, claiming they thought they were fake and only worth a few hundred dollars. Macfarlane spoiled the giggle when he was told they were genuine and they had to return them.
Andrew Robb: Robb led the charge against Rudd over Beijing Aust-China in 2008, but his fundraising body accepted $100,000 from Chinese businessman Xiangmo Huang while Robb, as trade minister, was negotiating Australia’s trade deal with China. Hypocrisy, much?
Brian Loughnane: as federal director of the Liberal Party, Loughnane oversaw the acceptance of three massive donations to the Liberal Party from one of the UK’s most famous tax exiles, Michael Ashcroft — $1 million in 2004, $250,000 in 2010 and $250,000 in 2013. Did Ashcroft’s donations encourage the Liberals to resist efforts to improve global tax transparency?
And what about donations from domestic sources? Where were the resignations here?
Bill Shorten: Right before Bill Shorten’s appearance before the trade union royal commission, the Victorian branch of the ALP suddenly remembered a donation to Shorten from eight years before, of what turned out to be nearly $70,000. Eight years is now the new all-time record for late disclosure and looks set to be the record for many years to come.
Tony Abbott (again): It wasn’t eight years, but in 2014, Tony Abbott’s fundraising body made a disclosure four years late of donations to the NSW Liberal Party. Like Shorten, there were no consequences for the failure.
Arthur Sinodinos: Stood down while Australian Water Holdings was investigated, ‘Alf-a-Recollection Artie “I don’t recall”ed his way through his Independent Commission Against Corruption evidence and claimed not to know that the company of which he was a director didn’t donate to the party of which he was treasurer. He’s now a cabinet minister again. Sinodinos was also copied in to emails about the use of Free Enterprise Foundation donations to the Liberal Party and mentioned in the NSW Electoral Commission’s report on the use of the FEF to get around NSW donation bans, but unsuccessfully tried to get the NSWEC to omit him from the report. It’s OK, Arthur — if your ICAC evidence is any guide, you’ll soon forget this indignity.
Honourable mentions: the WA Liberals accepting donations from Chinese businesses with no interests in that state and the federal ALP for taking $850,000 from a mainland Chinese property developer just before the 2013 election.
But apart from Shorten’s and Abbott’s respective state branches, no one in any of these cases did anything in any way illegal or inconsistent with the relevant electoral laws — although the use of the FEF remains subject to a dispute between the NSW Liberals and the NSWEC (Simon McInnes of the NSW Liberal Party stood down in March). And in nearly every case, Dastyari’s $1600 bill is a pittance compared to the sums involved. But if we’re going to start imposing some sort of ethical test in the absence of real reform, then look out for some turnover in politics.
Having scored Dastyari, the LNP will have to change their donation practices or look two-faced (again).
Brilliant, BK, brilliant – this is why you get paid the huge bucks, man: stitching a rancid narrative out of all the grubby tapestries hanging like tar-tanned lungs in the dim backrooms. What a filthy wreck of a system, what bipartisan arrogance and duplicity. Bring on Rundle’s Public Purge – I suggest we start by asking: why is it that parties (claim to) ‘need’ so much money to operate now, anyway? Are the battalion$ of political para$ite$ barnacled onto the ALP/LNP machines a crucial part of ‘our’ democracy? Is a huge election spend a civic ‘necessity’? Do Executives ‘need’ so many political staffers? A tenured Social Media specialist? Image consultants of any kind, FFS? Or is the (apparently) massively expensive business of running a modern party more about a big fat rent-seeking tail wagging the hapless elected dogs?
Great piece. Bang on the money, fair in the goolies.
Rocky: No! the LNP won’t; because they know full well Media will not pursue.
There is no real political focus upon legal/illegal acceptance of donations in our country, nor will there be. The Dastyari incident is purely an opportunistic example of domestic politics designed to refocus attention away from a Govt that is struggling for clear air, and onto Opposition.
It is why the electorate continues to disconnect from political elites.
100% agree.
Bernard, two questions.
1. Why does everyone keep referring to Dastyari as “the junior senator from NSW”? On July 2 he was number 1 on the ALP Senate ticket for NSW. That does not suggest junior to me. Unless, of course, everyone is referring to underdevelopment, in which case Abetz should surely be being called the junior senator from Tasmania.
2. In the farewell speeches before Parliament rose for the election Abbott referred to receiving a large sum of cash in a brown paper bag ($5,000 from memory) from an unnamed source and asking Bill Heffernan what to do with it. Why did this action not receive similar attention to that of Dastyari?
It may have even been the same speech where Abbott hoped out loud that Industry would find a suitably well paid job for Robb for his services while in parliament. This is how Abbott thinks, and it really does display a complete lack of personal ethics and integrity. This was our PM, everyone, and he still thinks he ought to be again.
For Labor, I fear L’affaire Dastyari is just the broken clock being right at this time – Shorten certainly gives no hint of any underlying morality or concern with the dignity of office. For all Crikey readers’ visceral hatred of Turnbull, he has overseen the first Ministerial resignations on matters of propriety (i.e. other than not being on the right side of a leadership spill) since 2009 and that does hint at rather higher standards than his 3 predecessors. [See http://australianpolitics.com/executive/ministerial-resignations-and-dismissals-since-1901.%5D
But yes, the LNP making hay with this is deeply hypocritical (although, for mine, the killer part of Dastardly’s actions was that his then-views on the South China Sea were at odds with his party’s and were pretty clearly paid for. Bernard’s analogy with the LNP and the banking sector doesn’t carry through quite so tidily, to my mind, because the banks are their constituency and always have been: by protecting the banks the LNP is not going against any expectation or stated policy to the contrary.)
It is not safe to say that Sam Dastyari’s views were paid for. I am quite certain I am not the only person who views our servile kowtowing to Washington’s line vis a vie China with deep concern. As part of their greater agenda of global hegemony, the US administration can not leave anything alone. Instead of all this ludicrous talk of “containing China” (what a farce), whipping up antagonisms and actually “war gaming” such a cataclysmic stupidity, the US should be encouraged by us to cooperate (yes, really cooperate) with China. A far better plan for the future of our region and planet
Agree with your first sentence, Richard. Dastyari is anything but stupid…if he was going down that path, surely it would have cost his Chinese benefactor millions…not a paltry $1670!
Anyway, Sam claims not to have made any statement contrary to Labor Party policy on the islands in the SC sea, and suggests this was a misquote/translation error. I understand there is no recording of the original statement made by Sam, so you are correct to say that Decorum’s allegations are ‘not safe’.
Isn’t that bordering on defamation, since there is no proof???
Sam got a small loan, get a grip on reality. He’s a junior senator, he has no clout, and there are 1.5 billion Chinese I bet have never heard of him.