The NSW Premier says he may ban political donations and revamp the system of public funding of elections. The intention is admirable, though I don't believe for a minute the Premier is a passionate convert to the concept of an election as a fairly run race, being as doing (or at least saying) something was forced on him following the scandalous behaviour of members of his own party on Wollongong Council.
Don't hold your breath for any actual change in the reality of the electoral process. Even if donations are banned, the parties will still be free to hold their inevitable raffles and other fund-raisiers. Till now a typical raffle might have as a prize a bottle of wine or similar. If donations are banned expect the typical prize to be a car or overseas trip. Tickets may still be a dollar, so the party faithful will still be able to show their support by buying 5 or 10 tickets but the big ticket sales will be made to those who currently buy the ear of a Minister via a large donation.
-"How many tickets for you, Mr. Property Developer?"
-"1000 thanks and by the way, who do I speak to to make an appointment with the Minister?"
-"I'm sorry Sir, I think you need 5000 tickets for that".
The second thing that is unlikely to change is the minimum number of first preference votes a candidate is required to achieve in order to qualify for any public funding at all. Currently Federally and in NSW the threshold stands at 4%.
This doesn't seem much but that's several thousand votes. In the recent Federal election for the seat of Gilmore there were nine candidates including myself. Of the nine only three (Labor, Liberal, Greens) qualified for funding. The other six received no 'reward' for their efforts at helping make democracy work.
Indeed in my case, as the only Independent candidate, I had to meet virtually all my expenses from my own pocket.
I don't expect that anyone will be doing us little guys any favours when the Electoral Act is redrafted. The system is currently designed to funnel the majority of the money into the coffers of the Labor and Liberal parties.
A 'donation-free-zone' Electoral Act will simply deliver more taxpayer money to the BIG TWO. The only real difference is that developers will have to get deeper pockets, not in order to fork out more money but to hold all those raffle tickets.
Link- http://www.efa.nsw.gov.au/state_government_elections/election_funding__and__entitlements
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