Comment on What's dodgy about the proposed Australian political donations reforms? | Constitutional Clarion
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 days ago
…impossible to read the Bill as a whole and make sense of it. The only way of doing it is to look at each amendment and figure out how it will alter the existing provisions in the Commonwealth Electoral Act and then try and work out how it all hangs together. Now, to do that properly would take weeks.
But we don’t have weeks, because the Labor Government and the Coalition Opposition have done a deal behind closed doors and want this rushed before Parliament before anyone—like me—can point out what’s wrong with it.
Now that’s dreadful from a democratic accountability point of view. A Bill that’s so complex and has such a profound impact upon our democratic system requires proper scrutiny.
Yiiikes.
yeahiknow3@lemmings.world 2 days ago
She’s being dishonest.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 days ago
Please elaborate.
yeahiknow3@lemmings.world 2 days ago
The bill seeks to make it harder for billionaires to buy elections.
It is a fantastic bill that makes it harder for the rich to steal elections. That’s why this literal Coal Barron hates the bill:
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Yeah, right. Regular Australians harmed by an $800k spending limit. Ridiculous.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 days ago
You don’t see how it’s beneficial to the big parties and very harmful to independents to have parties be able to amortise their advertising spend across all the seats they’re running in, where an independent candidate is stuck at the limit for a single seat?
But more to the point: you don’t think it’s problematic to be trying to rush through the legislation without giving it time to undergo proper rigorous scrutiny? Even if its goals are just, if the method by which it’s being achieved is not transparent, how can we trust their intentions? Especially if both Labor and the LNP are on board. That is what’s ridiculous.
eureka@aussie.zone 2 days ago
This reply doesn’t explain how “she’s being dishonest”. That’s a strong claim. In fact, you’re repeating some of the points made in the video.
A bill can have benefits but fail to achieve its stated goals. The fact that this bill could frustrate the influence rich like Palmer is progress, as mentioned in the video, but the video also interprets apparent issues with those annual limits (individual donations to multiple branches of the same party, caps are annual and reset after elections) raise those limits in practice above those stated - an individual can donate $20,000 a year to branches in each state for each year, effectively raising it to $540,000 per typical election cycle to parties with a nation-wide party structure (e.g. Liberal Party, Labor Party). A cap is good in theory, but that cap is excessively high for large parties, does not adequately address the issues of big money in politics, has a clear bias against small parties (both in the aforementioned points and also in other aspects of the bill), and therefore should not be accepted if this interpretation is correct. (As stated in the video, it’s hard to be confident in interpretations since the bill is complex and being rushed through after closed-door discussions.)
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Palmer themself is really a threat in the grand scheme of things. They’re a pathetic waste. I’m far more concerned about the owning class propping up the Liberal Party, who will collectively benefit from this legislation, in fact I’m more concerned about the Labor Party than the UAP.
Many of the parties I voted for are harmed by letting that limit be so high. Most parties are harmed by that limit being so high.