So, Mr Rudd, where's the cash?

TOMORROW evening, federal Labor MPs, some of whom have never visited The Lodge before, will attend a barbecue (which party wags are already calling The Last Supper) at the Prime Minister's official Canberra residence.

For, apart from a formal photo call on Tuesday, it will be the last gathering of Labor MPs before the Caucus meeting at which (still dressed in their best) they will meekly vote to hand over to Kevin Rudd their power to nominate the front bench. Never in the history of the ALP have MPs so comprehensively voluntarily neutered themselves and effectively muzzled any opposition within Caucus to their leader. But Rudd cracks the whip, and Labor MPs - still bedazzled by the achievement of winning government - have become willing slaves to his demands. On Wednesday, Rudd will host a testimonial to Kim Beazley, whom he betrayed while loudly proclaiming his loyal support. A number of Beazley supporters, unable to stomach the expected hypocritical outpourings for their long-serving former leader, have found they will unfortunately be unable to attend. Those hoping to curry favour with Rudd by demonstrating their loyal support may find it a fruitless exercise, however, as some who were in the front line of his cheer squad (think ACT senator Kate Lundy) found themselves left out on the benches when he chose his team. Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard hasn't shown the same disloyalty and disregard for her supporters, and one powerful ALP figure told me that if the party had to choose now between Rudd and Gillard as leader, Gillard would win in a landslide. As former leader Mark Latham - now writing for the well-heeled readers of The Financial Review, a newspaper not known to be favoured by Rudd's working families - said on Thursday, most of the Government's initiatives have been symbolic: the apology to the stolen generation; an indigenous welcome at the opening of Parliament; a temporary freeze on politicians' salaries; and the Kyoto Protocol ratification. After nearly 100 days in office, it's difficult to know what the Government is committed to, other than symbolism. But while Rudd continues to dazzle much of the media with his smoke-and-mirrors presentations, providing a diverting account of Opposition members taking trips abroad on behalf of private interest groups (as did Rudd and other Labor MPs), cracks are appearing in his narrative. It's clear he had a far greater degree of contact with disgraced former West Australian premier Brian Burke than he is willing to admit, and it's becoming obvious he has turned a blind eye to the ethics of Labor's fund-raising efforts - none more so than in NSW. With former NSW ALP secretary and senator-elect Mark Arbib a member of Rudd's team, and as the sex-and-cash scandal surrounding the Wollongong council, which occurred during Arbib's watch at the NSW ALP headquarters, continues to unravel, a greater question about NSW ALP fund-raising needs answering. Where did the money raised by numerous Labor MPs during last year's State election go? Documents released by the NSW Election Funding Authority show Blacktown MP Paul Gibson, for instance, received $336,355 in contributions but spent only $38,183. Reba Meagher, the embattled Health Minister and MP for Cabramatta, raised $209,248 but spent only $56,447, and Tony Stewart, MP for Bankstown, raised $133,035 but spent just $81,880. Those three MPs alone had more than $500,000 in unspent funds. None of them is listed as an individual donor to the State ALP, so where did the funds go? When John Newman, Meagher's predecessor in Cabramatta, was assassinated by Meagher political associate Phuong Ngo in 1994, a court found that campaign funds he had raised were the property of his estate. Asked what happened to the $298,000 difference between contributions and expenditures on his campaign, Gibson said he left it to the State office to work out. "I just stick by the rules,'' he said. "Take it up with them.'' But whose rules? The Electoral Funding Authority, an independent entity under the Premier's Department, has no authority to trace funds under its legislation. It only requires candidates and parties to declare all donations they receive and the expenditure they incur and donors to declare donations according to the rules of disclosure. Or does it deem that the money donated to a Labor candidate belongs to the party, contrary to the court's view in the Newman matter? If so, did it go to the NSW branch or to the federal ALP, or is it still in the MP's accounts? Where's the money? Perhaps Mark Arbib, now a colleague in these pages, will enlighten readers, as his successor, Karl Bitar, did not return calls. There is nothing transparent or ethical about non-disclosure of the whereabouts of unspent campaign funds. And the trail of the missing money must inevitably stop with Rudd. He must take responsibility for his party's bucks, having promised the nation that the buck stops with him.