Broken promise pays off as Labor dines out on big bucks

Despite the Queensland Premier banning her ministers from attending cash-for-access fund­raisers last July, the revived scheme has pulled in $270k in two months.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk banned her ministers from attending cash-for-access fundraisers in July last year, and then broke her promise less than a year later. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s broken promise on cash-for-access fund­raisers has transformed Queensland Labor’s finances, with the revived scheme raising more than $270,000 in under two months, easily eclipsing what the party raised in the past year.

Donors such as gambling giant Tabcorp Holdings, law firm Maurice Blackburn, lobbyists SAS Consulting Group and construction peak body Master Builders are among corporate entities to have shelled out the $11,000-a-year fee to sign up to the ALP’s resuscitated Queensland Labor Business Roundtable Program.

Despite the Queensland Premier in July last year banning her ministers from attending cash-for-access fund­raisers, the scheme spruiks intimate monthly “boardroom-style lunches and dinners” with government ministers.

Access to Labor’s Tourism and Sport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe was sold in June for $1500 a person for a two-hour lunch at an Italian restaurant at Portside, at which he was accompanied by Jared Cassidy, leader of the Labor opposition in Brisbane City Council.

Analysis by The Australian of donation records shows that in the 11 months between Ms Palas­zczuk’s July ban and the return of the fundraisers in late May, the state ALP raised just $167,805 in the form of 89 donations. That was eclipsed by the LNP, which raised $752,711 from 247 donations.

The LNP has kept its cash-for-access scheme going, though it has been rebranded as Solutions Queensland, and the top tier of yearly support is $25,000 plus GST.

In the less than two months since the ALP revived its business fundraising program, the party has raised $276,329 from 59 individual donations.

Labor is now keeping pace with the LNP, which raised $277,044 over the same period in 94 individual donations.

The Lottery Corporation, salary packaging company Remuneration Services Queensland, online betting peak body Responsible Wagering Australia, investors Initiative Capital, low emission technology firm LET Australia and oil company QER have also signed up to Labor’s new business forum.

In the same period, other donors, including management consultants GWI, printing and packaging company Kuhn Corp Print, natural gas producers Senex Energy, agribusiness Manildra Group and data security firm Cryptoloc Technology, have given $11,000 to the ALP but not specified it is for the cash-for-­access scheme.

Queensland Labor state secretary Kate Flanders lobbied Annastacia Palaszczuk for the return of cash-for-access events, arguing the ALP needed a “level playing field” with the LNP Opposition. Picture: Michaela Harlow

At the time of its revival, ALP state secretary Kate Flanders acknowledged Ms Palaszczuk had banned her ministers from the fundraisers but it was essential to have a “level playing field” with the LNP.

The state election is in Oct­ober next year.

Since Labor was elected in 2015, it has spearheaded a raft of electoral reforms, including banning donations from property developers, making all donations over $1000 public, real-time donation disclosures, and donation and expenditure caps.

LNP leader David Crisafulli has previously slammed many of the reforms as a “financial gerrymander” because unions are still able to donate in large sums to the ALP.

There is consternation within LNP ranks that the party is not raising enough to keep up with Labor. At the LNP state convention in Brisbane on Sunday, former Queensland Liberal Party president Con Galtos told the party faithful more people needed to donate and volunteer. “Our reputation (at) raising money over the past couple of years hasn’t been very good,” Mr Galtos said.

Corruption-buster Tony Fitzgerald in 2009 said Queensland was at risk of sliding back into its “dark past,” and warned about the danger of cash-for-access fundraisers. Then-Labor premier Anna Bligh banned the practice following his intervention.

“Access can now be purchased, patronage is dispensed, mates and supporters are appointed and retired politicians exploit their political connections to obtain success fees for deals between business and government,” Mr Fitzgerald said.