Ludwig,

A short time ago there were allegations that Leightons had been involved in bribery, and its stock immediately fell by about 25%, and there is a risk that the company will fold if there is any truth to the allegations. The reality is that no large business would go anywhere near anything that could be perceived as a bribe as the consequences would vastly outweigh any benefits that could be achieved.

All I see from you is vague unsupported personal opinion. My opinion is that the problem you are trying to solve is largely imaginary.

As for the perceived unbalanced nature of donations, that swings both ways, it is not permanently favouring any one side.

<< The reality is that no large business would go anywhere near anything that could be perceived as a bribe… >>

SM, the institutionalised form of bribery which is inherent in the donations regime is not perceived as bribery by the authorities, the shareholders or the general community. It is recognised as proper and appropriate activity. So businesses are free to do it with impunity.

<< All I see from you is vague unsupported personal opinion. My opinion is that the problem you are trying to solve is largely imaginary. >>

Wow. That IS interesting! I’ve partaken in discussions on this topic on OLO numerous times. There are a lot of people who share my concerns. I don’t think anyone has ever expressed the view that it is a non-issue.

<< As for the perceived unbalanced nature of donations, that swings both ways, it is not permanently favouring any one side. >>

Yes it is! It is always very strongly on one side of the political spectrum – the maximise-profits-for-the-already-big-and-powerful-business-sector side and totally against the long-term-planning-sustainability-oriented side.

Donations swing around a bit from one major party to the other depending on which is most likely to accede to the wishes of the donors or which one is in government, but they certainly don’t swing across to the environmentally-oriented limits-to-expansionism stabilisation-of-demand side of the spectrum.

Ludwig,

You have your opinions supported by concerns of a lot of people you have spoken too. A shared delusion is no base for legislation. Unless you can provide more than a gut feeling for justifying this, no one will take you seriously.

I have dealt with several large businesses, and certainly no one would touch anything that even vaguely resembled a bribe.

Big business is not the bogey man that the Green Tea party would have you believe.

"What Paul knows of business can be written on the back of a bus ticket." Shadow Minister, and if that was true, there would be enough room left over to write everything YOU know on everything.
"All major businesses have corporate responsibility programs" If you believe that you do live in 'Fairyland', Why would the Australian Hotels Association give the Liberal Party of NSW $250,000 before the last election? If the the AHA really wanted to act the corporate citizen then they would spend the money combating thing like underage drinking, along with a host of other social problems their members help create in society.

SM, I’m really battling to understand your position. It is just so clear-cut that big business (and big unions) has a much greater ability to give big donations than any other sector, has a pretty united desire on what they want our government to do, and doesn’t hold back on pushing government to do just that, of which donations is a significant part.

I don’t see how you can consider this to be of no consequence or indeed to not be a fundamental problem with democracy. Afterall, the same sort of thing happens the world over in ‘democracies’.

Even if you completely disagree with my political philosophy of sustainability, with population stabilisation at its core, and you fully support the big-business never-ending rapid growth type of philosophy, you must surely be able to see that the profit-motive-driven lobby has enormously more persuasive power than any other lobby and that the inherent bias is enormous.

Big business is not the main bogeyman. Their lobbying and donations, which effectively bribe government and buy favours, is totally understandable within a system that allows it.

The problem is with government. It is with the system that allows this bias to exist and indeed to be so enormous… and which neither of the major parties is willing to tackle.

This should be of a critical concern. Not just donations but the overall persuasive power of the profit-motive-driven lobby. It really does make it nigh on impossible for any government to move decisively towards a much lower rate of population growth and hence a much lower rate of increase in the demand for everything, and hence towards a sustainable future.

I would like to think that in the absence of this factor, Labor would now be very seriously considering moving to a sustainability-oriented platform along the lines of what Bob Carr and Kelvin Thomson have been advocating for many years. But they can’t if big business goes against it…. which they would…. and basically stops donating to them and increases donations to the totally antisustainability-oriented Coalition!

continued

<< I have dealt with several large businesses, and certainly no one would touch anything that even vaguely resembled a bribe. >>

Ok, so why then do big businesses give donations to political parties?