By Cara Waters
Independent councillor Jamal Hakim will run for Lord Mayor of Melbourne in the upcoming local council election and is pushing to change donation rules to make candidates disclose campaign donors.
“It’s time for change,” Hakim said. “It’s about making the change that the city needs to move forward.”
Councillor Jamal Hakim is running for Lord Mayor and is calling for transparency on campaign donations. Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Hakim is running on a platform advocating for transparency and integrity and is calling on all candidates to declare donations to their election campaign in real time.
“For election campaigns, you don’t know who’s donating to campaigns until well after the election,” he said. “There is no requirement to declare donations up front, which means that you don’t know who are the people who are playing behind the scenes, who is truly making the decisions in town hall, and how decisions are being considered.”
Hakim has proposed a motion ahead of the next City of Melbourne council meeting calling on any donations or gifts to candidates to be disclosed within 48 hours and for candidates to refrain from accepting donations from property developers, tobacco companies, gambling companies and weapons companies.
He is running as an independent and will lead a team that “will look like Melbourne, feel like Melbourne and sound like Melbourne”.
Hakim lives in Docklands and has at times been a dissenting voice in council, putting forward an unsuccessful motion earlier this year calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Hakim said he will disclose all donations to his campaign in real time as they can lead to conflicts of interest, necessitating that councillors abstain from voting and potentially hinder their ability to represent constituents properly.
“We will continue to follow through in office by making sure that we’re increasing that transparency and accountability, and for people having more time to be able to consider things that are coming through council at every single point,” he said.
Arron Wood said he was “actively considering” a position on donation disclosure. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Under Victorian law, candidates in council elections don’t have to submit details of their donations until 40 days after the election.
Anti-corruption probe Operation Sandon last year recommended working towards real-time public reporting of donations at state and local levels of government “because giving voters access to this information before elections reduces the risk of donations enabling improper access and influence”.
The cost of running a mayoral campaign has been estimated at $250,000 to $500,000, with former shock jock Derryn Hinch already dropping out of the race because he did not think he would be able to raise the requisite war chest.
The Age has asked all candidates to declare their donors in real time.
Lord Mayor Nick Reece said he would not disclose his donors before polling day, but has committed to rejecting donations from property developers in the City of Melbourne, the tobacco industry and gambling businesses.
“The campaign will disclose all donations in line with the relevant legislation,” a spokesman said.
Independent candidate and former deputy lord mayor Arron Wood said he was “actively considering” a position on donation disclosures. “To ensure a level playing field, if real-time disclosure is adopted, it should be mandatory for all candidates,” he said.
Likely Labor candidate Phil Reed said he supported better transparency and improved real-time reporting.
“We would have no difficulty with the principle, but the practice still needs to be made clear,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the Greens said at the last council election the Greens were the only party to declare their lord mayoral election donations in real time and would do the same thing in the upcoming election.
“The Greens and our Lord Mayor candidate Roxane Ingleton think voters deserve to know who is funding their Lord Mayor candidates – and the Greens live up to these values,” she said.
“The Greens have also tried to change the law in Victoria to cap political donations to council candidates, and ban donations from property developers, and we’re deeply disappointed Labor and the Liberals have voted against this.”
Gary Morgan said he had not asked for or received any donations for his campaign.
“I don’t need funds, we need sensible support from people who want Melbourne to be a better place for residents, business owners and operators, residents from the suburbs and Victorian towns and rural areas, and interstate and overseas corporations and tourists,” he said.
In the last council elections it was only after the “Team Capp” joint ticket of former Lord Mayor Sally Capp, current Lord Mayor Nick Reece and current candidate for deputy mayor Roshena Campbell were elected that it was revealed the campaign had amassed more than $316,000 in donations from a who’s who of Melbourne’s elite.
Pratt Holdings, associated with one of Australia’s richest men, Anthony Pratt, donated $25,000, while other well-known donors included Baillieu Myer of the Myer family, America’s Cup yachting star John Bertrand, private equity firm boss Mark Summerhayes, Capp’s aunt and former Labor minister Ros Kelly and former Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford.
Health food business New Core Group, plaintiff law firm Maurice Blackburn, boutique investment bank Australian Heritage Group and Mitchelton Wines and Jayco Corporation, which are both associated with rich-lister Gerry Ryan, also donated to the campaign.
The biggest single donor to candidates was the CFMEU, which has been the subject of the ‘Building Bad’ investigation in The Age, the Australian Financial Review and 60 Minutes over recent weeks, revealing allegations of criminal infiltration, kickback offers and corruption within the powerful union.
The CFMEU donated $195,838 to ALP member Jennifer Yang’s campaign, alongside $3600 from the TWU and $500 from the MUA. Yang ran as an independent.
Other donors included venture capitalist Ben Gray, who runs BGH Capital, plaintiff law firm Zaparas Lawyers, internet service provider Netbay Internet, and city Vietnamese restaurant Pho Bo Ga Mekong.
Yang was unsuccessful but CFMEU Victorian political liaison officer Elizabeth Doidge was elected to council on her ticket.
Hakim said his campaign will be “people funded”.
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