Andrew Morton's commendably brief article concludes with the sentence:

"The danger is that these cynical measures
to support unpopular governments, which
started in NSW and spread to Queensland,
will soon reach Canberra."

What a pleasure to see this subject ventilated on the OLO site. I must admit that I much preferred the title Andrew Morton gave this issue on his own blog of 'Political parties are protecting themselves from the voters' (http://andrewnorton.info/2011/05/20/political-parties-are-protecting-themselves-from-the-voters/ ), than the one given here of 'Rigging the campaign finance system', but I guess that is possibly subjective commentary upon editorial presentation of articles upon OLO .

What intrigues me is the author's claim that these 'cynical measures' started in NSW. Is there a reference (preferably with a working link) available to the legislation that would have underpinned such a starting point? I ask this not to attempt to put the author 'on the spot', but rather to overcome the seeming official attempts at burial of information and the giving of misleading references of the like of which have been commented upon here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11834#205311 (particularly in the fourth-last paragraph).

Whilst awaiting some feedback on the questions raised, I feel compelled to observe that it is a pity that these seeming moves to insulate political parties from the erstwhile consequences of the public opprobrium in which they seem to to be being generally held are identified as having been partisanly inspired. What if that opprobrium was to have been the result of a subliminal recognition by the voting public of the hijacking of our national politics by interests external to Australia?

While recognising that the issue as to campaign financing rests upon acceptance of the idea that such financing is extremly influential in determining a political party's electoral fortunes, perhaps more thought should be given to the much greater campaigning leverage exercisable by some hypothetical external influence over Australian politics should there be an ability to effectively restrict the relative significance of funding to such as might threaten to CHANGE the political agenda.