Michael Yabsley (Image: AAP/Tracey Nearmy)

Liberal Party fundraising legend Michael Yabsley has called for a transition to a “low-value high volume” political donation system that would force parties to regrow their community links and end what Yablsey calls “governments for rent”.

Describing himself a poacher-turned-gamekeeper, the former treasurer of the federal Liberal Party and long-time critic of donation laws today launched “Dark Money”, a paper and a ten-point plan to radically alter political fundraising and expenditure. His plan involves:

  • A $200 cap on political donations per individual, covering the entire electoral cycle in each jurisdiction
  • A cap on election expenditure, including advertising
  • Only enrolled Australian citizens permitted to make donations
  • All donations to be anonymous and non-disclosable, as their small size would remove the case for disclosure
  • No other entities, corporations, unions or organisations to be permitted to make donations
  • All public funding of elections to be removed
  • Laws to be enforced with criminal sanctions carrying custodial sentences, including targeting the aggregation of small donations into significantly larger donations
  • National uniform donation laws across all states and territories
  • Electoral commissions to police laws and review caps
  • A bespoke federal/state body to develop a program of election debates and set media pieces during election campaigns.

Yabsley was joined by an array of luminaries for the launch: former Transfield head and deliberative democracy campaigner Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, Labor eminence grise Stephen Loosley, former banker and Women for Election CEO Licia Heath and former judge and Centre for Public Integrity chair Anthony Whealy.

Whealy, arguing the federal donations system was the most broken, singled out Scott Morrison’s “gas-led recovery” and large donations from companies like Santos as an example of the “perception that our political masters have been captured and policy is being driven by big donors”.

Belgiorno-Netti agreed, referring to his own experience of political donations and “rubber chicken” fundraiser attendance and his decision at Transfield to shut down all donations.

“We all know it’s pay to play,” he said, though he wants full public funding of campaigns and a deliberative committee chosen from Australian citizens to examine the matter.

Donations allow vested interests double influence, both internally and externally, Heath noted. Loosley urged bipartisan reform but rejected Yabsley’s proposal that unions be banned from donating like corporations, insisting “custom and tradition” and the organic links with Labor made trade union donations acceptable.

Yabsley’s role as instigator of the campaign push is significant — he is one of the most experienced political fundraisers in recent Australian history, with a strong understanding of the basic relationship between donors and politicians.

When a vastly experienced figure like Yabsley calls fundraising events “government for rent” and a business doyen describes the system as “pay to play”, there can be no room for further doubt or obfuscation — Australia’s political donations system, and especially the Commonwealth, is seen as corrupt by its most important participants.