Dump access baggage

A ONE-ON-ONE dinner with a minister of the crown: $10,000, notes contributing editor Peter Van Onselen.

A ONE-ON-ONE dinner with a minister of the crown: $10,000, notes contributing editor Peter Van Onselen.

The chance to influence a political decision: priceless. I was first exposed to the murky world of political donations when I attended the celebrations for Philip Ruddock's 30 years in parliament in September 2003.

I was a guest at a table Malcolm Turnbull had arranged right in the middle of his attempts to unseat Peter King as the Liberal candidate for the seat of Wentworth.

It was a fascinating evening, not for the usual political backslapping and congratulatory rhetoric that inevitably flows at such functions (how different things now are for the Liberal Party), but for the way the event was used as a chance to raise funds for the federal election due the following year.

Apart from the inflated price that must have been charged for each ticket (I can't be sure, as I didn't pay), there was a raffle and an auction. It was no ordinary auction. Items to be bid on included walks and jogs with cabinet ministers, Ruddock and Tony Abbott among them. The then prime minister, John Howard, was of course on show, signing bottles of wine and pictures of himself to help raise as much money as possible.

Thrown into the mix were donated holidays and flights by companies keen to get the ear of the Coalition government.

To Turnbull's credit, and I am sure he wouldn't mind me relaying our private conversation, he was aghast at the spectacle. It was unedifying and demeaning for each elected official who was required to take part. I can only assume Turnbull was wondering what he was letting himself in for by showing an interest in the political game.

The way our politicians are forced to spend so much time cosying up to party donors to help with fundraising is part of the prostitution of our political system. We may live in a capitalist society, but the field of politics should be focused on democracy, not engaged in a capitalist arms race for financial advantage over political opponents.

Cynics have suggested that one of the reasons Abbott and Turnbull have become closer in recent months is that Abbott wants to prop Turnbull up for his own longer term leadership ambitions. But perhaps it comes back to their mutual view that something needs to be done to reform donations laws. As a minister, Abbott would frequently complain about having to attend fundraisers, which interfered both with his policy job as a minister and his desire to spend time with his family.

Just because I have started this article by referring to Liberal Party fundraisers should not for a moment mislead readers into thinking the Labor Party isn't just as bad. For years the Liberals were better federal fundraisers because they were in government. Incumbents raise money more easily than oppositions because they are the decision makers and that's who businesspeople want to spend time with. During Howard's federal reign, state Labor governments raised substantially more money than their state Liberal counterparts. They did so, in NSW for example, by auctioning off harbour cruises with ministers at fundraisers. And now that Kevin Rudd is in power federally, the Labor Party is outdoing the Liberals in that arena as well.

For years the Australian Democrats led the charge to reform political donations. Former West Australian senator Andrew Murray spent much of his parliamentary career trying to convince the main parties to consider reforms. His ideas fell on deaf ears.

The practice of fundraising is rife on both sides of the parliamentary chamber and unless someone in one of the major parties takes a stand, it will spiral out of control, just as it has in the US over the past two decades.

That's why it is a good thing that Queensland Premier Anna Bligh is arguing for a partial ban on political donations, as well as a need to curb the perceived influence of lobbyists. She recognises the public's tolerance is fast running out. Bligh, of course, is taking the stand that she is because her state has been rocked by the suggestion from one-time royal commissioner and watchdog Tony Fitzgerald that corruption in the order of that which occurred during the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era could resurface, given the existing political culture. His words were damning.

At least Bligh is looking to take some action. However, sadly, some of her interstate colleagues have been less than supportive of her siren call for reform.

Last week the Labor national conference rolled into Sydney. Business observers, as they are known, were able to attend the conference and selected events for the princely sum of $7500. For that they, most significantly, got to spend one-on-one time with a minister.

I suspect most members of the public would consider the practice of business observers attending party conferences in this way tantamount to buying access, if not influence. Not according to recently promoted federal cabinet minister Chris Bowen: "Both parties have engaged in business observers programs at conferences and I don't think anybody would suggest that either party, at the federal level, (has) acted inappropriately in doing so."

And politicians wonder why the public often views them as out of touch.

Bowen is the face of the future inside the Labor Party, a minister well regarded by his Prime Minister. But if he doesn't see the need for reform of practices that involve businesspeople buying access, there isn't much hope for meaningful reforms taking hold federally.

The federal Labor Party has put together a green paper on electoral reform, but it has only addressed the issue of donations in so far as it can see a partisan advantage. Lowering the threshold for donations disclosures won't eradicate business influence via donations, it will only guarantee it is equalised between the parties, because unlike the unions, the business community isn't prepared to back one side of politics and suffer the consequences if the other lot wins control of the treasury benches. So it donates to both sides in the hope of influencing whoever wins the election.

Turnbull has long argued that business donations should be banned along with donations from unions. He would like to see donations restricted to individuals, and even then capped to ensure no individual can have too much influence.

It is one of the finer policy positions he has taken since entering parliament.

Politics is as much about perception as it is about reality. Even if donations don't buy businesspeople anything more than access, surely the perception (if not the risk) that access could morph into influence is reason enough to ensure our well-worn democracy isn't compromised in this way?

Perhaps the most important part of any effort to reform donation laws is a public recognition that doing so will require the taxpayer to dole out even more in public funding. Parties need to spruik their message and doing so in the information age isn't cheap. Taxpayers must therefore be prepared to lift the public funding allotment to parties of less than $3 for each vote they receive (when parties reach the required threshold of support).

Finding the funds, however, shouldn't be too difficult. For a start, curbing expensive government-funded information campaigns would provide most of the capital needed. Rudd in opposition, like Howard before him, railed against the amount of money the government spent on clearly partisan advertising, in particular leading up to an election. Howard complained about Paul Keating's Working Nation campaign and Rudd complained about Howard's Work Choices campaign. Now Rudd is throwing money into climate change and stimulus spending campaigns, every bit as partisan in their rhetoric as those that went before them.

If the hundreds of millions of dollars these campaigns cost were to be redirected into increased public funding to replace business and union funding for the purpose of influencing decision makers, we would all be the better for it.