To campaign finance reform, Fonzie says… eyyyyyy!
Malcolm Turnbull argues against the corrupting influence of corporate donations:
“My view is that we should ban all donations to political parties other than from individuals who are on the electoral roll – that’s to say human beings – and with an annual cap.”
An excellent idea the Greens have been pushing for some time.
Fat chance getting the other people in the Liberal party, the party of big business, the party of mining multinationals, the party of tobacco multinationals, to agree, though.
Moved On 
I agree the system is corrpt at its core.
The only way to satify the will of the people is to have the alp, the greens and the indepenants in power. Anything else really goes against the peoples will and should be condemed as it would be at the next election.
We also need either a no banking bail out bill or a banking super profits tax, the banks need to pay for being quasi underwiten by the taxpayer.
Yes, sometimes Albrechtsen is correct too, she had Arbib nailed. She said something along the lines of Arbib when he accepted Q&As invitation the week before would have thought that he’d be in a totally different position.
I’m sure it’ll be much like his CO2 emissions stance. Have a reasonable point of view, compromise to lobbyists and in the end drop it as your party-room is full of fundamentalists. I also thought it amusing the rhetoric of Greens thinking their shit is pure white. The actions of the Liberal party room were that of a group of fundamentalists who are unwilling to compromise on important issues. I guess it’s the kind of double standard one should expect from politics under the current system.
I have a feeling that given Turnbull being one the very few Liberals that appears to be more forward thinking (and left leaning!) if the party had stuck with him as leader, they may well have done better in the election. Sure, the conservative Liberal base would have panties in a bunch, but I suspect many Labor voters would have seen them as more credible to progressive issues, and may have changed their vote..
Am I talking out of my ass?
Nice work, usesomesanity, it almost reads like you’re serious. 😉
I can’t help but like Turnbull, he’s a dinosaur from the forgotten progressive wing of the Liberal party and what he said was spot-on. The unions (on the Labor side) and the corporates (on the conservative side) would never agree to this sort of reform, unfortunately. The other interesting thing he said was that government funding should fill the gap. I’ve got some issues with that, but it’s an idea worth exploring.
Sarah Hanson-Young isn’t someone the Greens should be pushing as a spokeswoman though. Ludlam and Milne are far, far better communicators in this context. The bizarre thing is that despite Tony Windsor’s obvious lack of media training (um… ah… uh…) he came across as the most coherent of the panel (with HMs to Graham Richardson and Planet Janet).
I’ve been impressed by Malcolm Turnbull for a long while. He comes across as very straightforward and sensible. Clearly the man’s no dill.
Had Turnbull been at the helm, the Coalition would have romped home on Saturday.
(I think the title of this post comes over as a tad petulant, but hey it’s your gig.)
Phil: “the title of this post comes over as a tad petulant”
Part of the charm of this place is that it is Ground Zero for Green talking points.
“Sarah Hanson-Young isn’t someone the Greens should be pushing as a spokeswoman though. Ludlam and Milne are far, far better communicators in this context”
Agreed, she’s far too slow to think on her feet, she got hammered by Richo and Turnbull a couple of months ago on Q&A. Milne on the other hand gave as good as she got from Wong (and was it Turnbull or Richo) on a more recent Q&A.
SB… it’s the talking point of a former leader of the Liberal party.
RobJ… it’s quite possible she’s great at policy development or political strategy or whatever, but you don’t necessarily want those people in front of the camera. The new senate will have 9 senators to choose from, so there may be some better media performers from this mob. As an aside, the absence of Arbib last night was a bad, baaaad look, although I understand it was probably inappropriate to have him and Windsor being needled to negotiate in public.
Redravens, the referencing of Turnbull looks like an attempt to appear more moderate by a party that has successfully sponsored a number of discredited leftists at this election.
Turnbull has said plenty of sensible things – but sensible things are quite likely to get you knifed in the Liberal party room under Abbott.
“RobJ… it’s quite possible she’s great at policy development or political strategy or whatever”
Probably, no doubt she’s clever but Milne is a more effective spokesperson, doesn’t get talked over very easily.
“As an aside, the absence of Arbib last night was a bad, baaaad look, ”
As I said earlier – Albrechtsen nailed it.
turnbull can say anything, and people take it at face value
maybe i should forward them some good business deals via email. the daughter of a wealthy cocoa merchant in Abidjan has contacted me regarding a profitable bank transfer
after all, theres nothing odd about a $180 million dollar rhodes scholar liberal businesman wanting to ban corporate donations, is there?
Karl – the elephant in the room that few people on this thread have been willing to admit to is Labor’s dependence on corporate cash. The Labor party is at least as reliant on corporate and union money as the Liberals, and if Malcy is calling for the end of such donations you can bet your arse that he thinks such a change would hurt Labor more than it would the Libs.
Personally, I can’t see any light between the majors at all when it comes to their craven pandering to vested moneyed interests and their sell-out of principle in the face of sustained lobbying.
Mondo, so you think that Mal’s just decided there are more wealthy individual donors for Liberal than Labor?
I can’t disagree with the principal though – donations only from indiviuduals on the electoral role.
yeah i agree, he is assuming it would hurt Labor more.
its all pie in the sky of course, nothing like this will ever happen. but like all rhodes scholars, his job is to give voice to the progressive zeitgest, and then make sure that nothing actually changes
old, true labor, used to be very vigilant against what they called the “money power”. now they are a wholly owned subsidiary of it
karl: “like all rhodes scholars, his job is to give voice to the progressive zeitgest”
Do you include Tony Abbott in this?
sorry, i meant “lefty” rhodes scholars
conservatives like jesuit trained abbott dont need to pretend to represent the working class
To timandtess and Phill, had Turnbull still been at the helm of the Liberal Party they wouldn’t have reneged on their deal to get up an ETS.
That being the case Rudd wouldn’t have been forced into dropping the issue by the right wingers in Labor and would have remained leader in good standing.
An election between Rudd and Turnbull would have been a completely different event to what happened last weekend and I doubt the Libs would have ‘romped home’.
Cheers
I think it’s a fantastic idea, if it hurts one major more then other then stiff.
He did mention a CAP to stop a Dick Pratt type spending up big on a political party. He also mentioned it may mean we need more public funding.
Mondo, so you think that Mal’s just decided there are more wealthy individual donors for Liberal than Labor?
I think that’s a pretty reasonable conclusion.
Marek, Rudd was on the nose for more than his back down on the ETS. I think there’s a lot of truth in the theory that Rudd pissed off the
Labor back room fellas and that socially, he is quite odd.
Like it not; that matters, so I think Rudd would have been toast anyway. His opinion polls were on a downward slide and , like me, there’s plenty of people who find Turnbull eminently sensible.
Phill,I think we’re in agreement about Turnbull.
After voting Green, I would have preferenced him over Rudd.
Still, I stand by my point, and many commentors agree, that Rudd’s greatest downfall was his abandonement of the ETS.
From there, things went downhill quickly.
After all, it’s a smooth transition from disdain to despite.
Rudd’s greatest miscalculation was in thinking that the Mining Tax would go down well with the populace.
He didn’t count on the Mining Council backlash and the Australian peoples’ propensity to swallow emotive bullshit, outright lies and the ejaculant of Rolex Revolutionaries.
Cheers.
So if you ban donations, how do you stop the proxy war that will follow? Ban all advertising by unions, Getupthemselves! and other special interest groups?
That’s an interesting question. There’s no point banning corporate/union donations if those entities can still curry favour by paying for party-specific advertising.
Take the smoking approach – ban advertsing as a health hazard!
Seriously – I don’t see that as so much of a problem. Political parties were concieved of as groupings of voting citizens, so direct funding of the parties by non-corporeal entities has always had the hint of ‘I’ll scratch ypurt back if you scratch mine’. But that doesn’t rule out organisations having political/policy views.
If that really is still a problem then you have to look at the idea of publicly funded campaigns, which has been floated a few times. It’s accepted without a blink that elections are publicly funded, which already includes payments linked to the humber of votes received. Including set campaign funding in that overall cost isn’t such a great leap.
“He didn’t count on the Mining Council backlash and the Australian peoples’ propensity to swallow emotive bullshit, outright lies and the ejaculant of Rolex Revolutionaries.”
Or how many Australian’s hold big miners shares.
I thought Turnbull was great last night – actually I though the whole panel was great and had a really positive debate on several issues. Arbib not rocking up was an absolute fuckup by Labor – it confirmed several things without them needing to be discussed and confirmed the “backroom” rumours that have been running rampant. Course, had he turned up, he would have been crucified – so I guess its all about swings and roundabouts.