Yes, Graham! But how do we separate the crooks from the bagmen? One remembers the virtual conga line of the white shoe brigade and the brown paper bags. that prompted the Fitzgerald enquiry. If all donation were limited to just $1,000.00 per individual and everything above that had to be registered and revealed within a week of acceptance. And remember, in some cultures, gift giving is an acceptable way of doing business. Albeit corrupt? Foreign donations ought to be both refused and legislated against! Least they be seen to be purchasing something, or an outcome, or subservience!? Nothing wrong with local domestic donations from Australian nationals, just as long as we all know, in a timely fashion and before the election this money helped fund. And for which candidate, or party! And ought to be both limited and as crowdfunding that comes completely free of any strings! After that, the electoral commision could be the channel for all such donations, which could be doled out on some pro-rata formula? Where the party or candidate had better than 5% endorsement? At the end of the day, it goes without saying, those donating thousands, do so in the expectation they are buying something be it, influence, an outcome or outright control? And donations don't need to be money but editorials full-page advertising spreads and so on that are equally expensive gifts from this or that party or entity. Be it a powerful union or billionaire developer/miner etc?

"Building, construction and real estate represent around 15 per cent of the state economy but will be almost invisible from the state’s democracy."

So what?

Elections are for living, breathing citizen electors, not for corporations of any kind - by which I include trade unions, employer bodies, "Institutes", trusts, individual companies and, particularly, donations from foreigners and their bagmen, of whatever type.

The basic principle should be that donations are personal and come from electors, personally, who are enrolled to vote in any given electorate. Not your electorate? Then vote where you live, or not at all.

What's not to like about that?

If publication of electoral comment in foreign-owned media was also scratched, I'd be happier still. I imagine that the Murdoch and Guardian units would get their noses out of joint for a while, but those noses have no duty fiddling with our elections in the first place.

That would leave "our" ABC, sundry local suburban publications, online commentary and journals such as The Forum and OLO plus citizen-funded party publications such as policy statements. Do we need more?

Oh, while I'm at it... forget TV and related unless they are verified to be Australian owned and managed.

Singelton engineer: Hear, hear and well said! Alan B.

It is not yet known how much the gaming industry contributed to the successful Hodgman election in Tasmania but it looks like it was in effect a loan. Shortly after the election the returned government gave $6.8m to the Tasmanian Hospitality Association.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-09/tasmanian-hospitality-association-to-have-funding-boost/9530864
If that's not corrupt I don't know what is.

The left want to be a little careful of these games.

The libs will be back in sometime, & they just might make donations from unions illegal. That would make elections much fairer, wouldn't it.

Well it is wrong to prevent individuals from using their money to try to change the regime, irrespective of what job they happen to be working in for living, also regardless of where they live, in case they were exiled or escaped their former place of residence due to draconic laws and are still trying to reverse those laws so they can return.

There is nothing wrong, however, about preventing corporate entities from donating because these are not sentient beings and deserve no rights to begin with.

Many people are concerned about big business wielding
power and influence over the Liberal and Labor parties.
They question whether Australia is a democracy or
a country governed by and for wealthy people and
corporations.

We do need a reform of political donations and we need
to put in place a National Independent Commission against
Corruption.

Membership of Australian political parties has declined over
the years so they're now less able to raise money from
Membership fees. Parties do receive some public funding
but not enough to pay for expensive election campaigns.
This has led to parties being reliant on political
donations.

If we ban donations from individuals and corporations funding
for political campaigns must come from elsewhere. Public
funding of elections will need to increase - meaning taxpayers
will bear a bigger burden in future elections.

My suggestion would be to place caps on donations. This would
level the playing field and reduce the influence of rich
donors.

Interesting knee jerk reactions about corporations. All a company, or an association, is, is a means by which people pool their collective efforts. If you banned donations by corporations, then the people behind them would just make the donation instead.

I think a few of you are confused too about what money from corporations buys you, and what the alternatives are. If someone like me volunteers my time to work for a political party doing strategy, media etc. then I would pretty soon be up around the tens of thousands of dollars, based on professional rates. I'm assuming you wouldn't have a problem with me doing that, because I'm an individual, and I vote.

But what if instead I work for myself, earn the same amount of money and pay it to someone else, to do the same work for the party? You'd characterise that as improper? But the end result is exactly the same.

Which would be one reason why the High Court recognises that bodies corporate have the right to donate money to parties. I find this sort of debate we are having here to be very anti-democratic.

Dear Graham,

Companies have privileges that ordinary people have not, such as paying less tax and limited responsibility for their actions. I would argue that their existence is unfair to begin with, but then the economists would panic, calling it an economic suicide.

In the least, with privileges may come restrictions - while it could be anti-economic, there is nothing morally wrong about it.

So by all means, let companies distribute their profits in wages and dividends, then let the individuals who received their money contribute as much as they like to political parties - after tax of course.