Of course the hotel industry would give big donations to the political party in power. It wouldn't matter one iota which party. There's lots of money to be made.

The arguments that the hotel industry can deliver on why they should be listened to are also powerful. State governments are addicted to the revenue earned from gambling. It is staggering.

State governments are limited in how they can raise money since handing over taxing the populace to the Federal government. Now State governments have to go begging for a slice of tax revenue collected.

There are two issues here. The issue of donations to political parties for access by business interests. And how State governments are vulnerable to the prospect of making money.

good article

the smoking thing bothers me most. it is staggering that despite there being case law in NSW where an employee (Marlene Sharp) sued her employer, port kembla RSL club (and won a sizeable settlement)after developing throat cancer whilst working in the club, it has not been banned outright indoors. surely there must be more cases for the slater and gordons of this world to (ambulance) chase up on that front??

I can choose to go to a club and not gamble but I cannot choose not to inspire the vile fumes generated by smokers and their filthy habit.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Australia's political donation system may have many problems but it's still better than the alternatives. It's what Ms Rhiannon doesn't say that causes me to wonder if she has a secret agenda and what that agenda is. She's told us what she's against but is she really trying to put forward an argument in favour of public funding of political parties?
After 8 years as a state MP in WA, losing my seat in 2005 because of problems I had with the Liberal Party, I'm convinced that the only changes needed to our donation system are to make every donation larger than $1 public and to make sure as best as possible (newspaper advertisements perhaps) that everyone knows who gave how much to which party or candidate.
The issue is not where the money is coming from. It's all about how the influence which the money is clearly hoping to buy is applied after the party wins power or the candidate is elected. If the AHA donates money to a party which then wins government, the electorate needs to know the details of that donation so that, when decisions affecting the hotel industry are pending, the public and the media can scrutinise the issues and then the decisions.
My experience is that the Greens in WA don't want corporate donations mainly because they don't get any. Instead, they rely on large numbers of small donations of money (and huge donations of time) from their individual supporters, so why would they support any other form of campaign donations?