Dear GrahamY,

I wasn't sure if this might not have been tongue in cheek at first.

“The ban on property developer donations is a huge breach in democratic and legal principles.”

No it was done to protect our democracy not to breach it. Property developers were not going to the communities they were impacting but to politicians and their parties who are prepared to alter their decisions based on potential or realised funding sources.

You have made the case that union groups are doing exactly the same but your comparison is inane.

Let's take an example you provided. Flannery personally donates $5000 while United Voice donates $303,631.77 which split among 120,000 members represents about $2.50 each and yet you find some sort of equivalence? Sorry, not a hope.

And wasn't Flannery that bloke who put in around $600,000 into that mining company at the center of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry in order to reap $50 million two months later?

Are we to believe there was not a single fishy thing was done in this deal?

Look I am for full disclosure. I'm sure if you had been engaged in providing services to Flannery or to KTQ Developments you would have flagged it here or with the Courier, or even if it were to property developers in general. However the general public is not that confident about property developers doing the same. I live in a rural shire and it is laughingly referred to as a “developer's playground” with developers or real estate agents regularly getting themselves on Council.

There is so much money floating around developments that the potential for corruption is a given. They should be denied seats on our Councils and I am glad there are Shires where this occurs.