Friday 29th of March 2024

charitable developers...

 

sweet charity

The New South Wales division of the Liberal Party has been denied access to more than $4 million in public campaign funding by the state's electoral commission after its refusal to disclose the details of donors.

Political parties must disclose details of donations they receive, including donor details.

In September 2011, the Liberal Party disclosed a list of political donations relating the 2011 state election, including donations from the Free Enterprise Foundation totalling more than $700,000.

The NSW Electoral Commission concluded that donations given to the Liberal Party's election campaign via the Free Enterprise Foundation failed to disclose the required details.

In a summary of its findings, the Electoral Commission said: "When the Foundation purported to pay the money to the Liberal Party... it was in truth acting as an agent for the donors."

"At all times [the donors'] details should have been disclosed by themselves and the party if the sums involved made them 'major political donors'," the Electoral Commission said.

The Electoral Commission concluded the Foundation was used as a means of offering anonymity to favourable donors, including property developers.

In NSW, property developers are listed as prohibited donors.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/failed-integration-and-fighters-from-iraq-and-syria-bring-terror-whirlwind-to-brussels-20160323-gnpkv9.html

 

mickey the kid...

Mike Baird has scotched suggestions he plans to quit politics shortly after the 2019 state election, declaring: "I'm determined to stay as long as I possibly can. That's my desire."

In an interview marking a year since the Coalition's re-election, the Premier acknowledged there was community anger over a host of issues including council mergers, WestConnex motorway, lockout laws, TAFE reform and tougher protest laws for mining and coal seam gas.

Mr Baird conceded "there undoubtedly is" capacity for electoral backlash on the hot button council amalgamation issue.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-premier-mike-baird--im-determined-to-stay-as-long-as-i-possibly-can-20160323-gnp9ip.html

 

 

Mickey-the-kid is kidding you... Yes he wants to stay as long as he can. There is more crap he wants to do, despite the many attacks he has fostered on the electorate in his desire to build useless stuff, including dark tunnels and grandiose white elephants, as well as kill off councils and promote gambling as a worthwhile pass time, plus the destruction of parks and old trees for a 1928 tram line, He also wants you to go to bed before midnight, he wants you to go to church and the casino.

On the cash donations, his hands are clean, though his party did accept cash from the "Free Enterprise Foundation..." See how far this is going to go... No far really, because his party was already in relationships with developers, especially those who are building Barangaroo and Darling Harbour monster thingies. His government also continued to accept James unsolicited submission of another gaming house, exclusive to big gamblers and taller than Sydney itself...

 

The future according to Mickey-the-Kid is more cranes, more cranes, more cranes and more tunnels for big rats in little cars — and the destruction of your tranquil suburbs.

stupid draconian undemocratic laws penned by baird...

Yesterday Lock the Gate Alliance released a shocking new report which revealed that coal mining companies in NSW are polluting our waterways with large volumes of dangerous substances like arsenic and lead.

In fact, the NSW coal mining industry dumped almost 27,000kg of heavy metals and other pollutants into streams and rivers in 2014.

This is just the latest revelation about the damage that coal mining is doing to water resources in Sydney’s drinking water catchment, the Hunter Valley and the Liverpool Plains.

On the driest inhabited continent on earth, there’s got to be better protection for our precious water supplies.

With news this week that the Federal election is likely to be called for 2 July, we think it’s about time that the damage caused by mining to our water resources is put on the national agenda.

Do you agree?

If so, please back our call to put the impacts of mining on our water supplies on the Federal election agenda in the next 100 days. We need to make it front and centre in the national debate.

It was World Water Day on Tuesday, which serves to remind us that our drinking water catchments and our national groundwater basins should be off limits to mining. It’s not too much to ask, and we need everyone around the country to back this call ahead of the Federal election in July.

If we don’t have clean reliable water supplies, we can’t survive.

Our state governments have failed us, so we’re calling for national action and no-go zones to protect our vital water resources.

The upcoming Federal election gives us a chance to put a spotlight on the risks posed to water supplies by pollution and groundwater damage caused by mining companies.

If we take action now, we can stop the Shenhua Watermark coal mine from putting the water resources of the Liverpool Plains at risk and prevent any more dangerous gas drilling in the Great Artesian Basin.

Thanks for standing with us,

 

spotlight on lib (CONservative) corruption...

At issue was the commission's finding - based on evidence previously given to the Independent Commission Against Corruption - that some of that money was from illegal donors such as property developers.

The revelation rather quickly spoiled Baird's planned anniversary celebrations on Thursday.

Worse, it completely undermined his determination to paint himself as the squeaky clean Premier who stepped into fix the rotten donations system after the NSW Liberals were dragged before ICAC in 2014's Operation Spicer into illegal fundraising.

The disclosure meant that at the very moment Baird was presenting his government as pristine on donations issue, it was being revealed that his own party was refusing to play ball with election funding authorities on the question of illegal campaign contributions.

The Liberal party and Baird have always expected the Free Enterprise Foundation issue to resurface eventually when ICAC tabled its report, findings and recommendations from Operation Spicer.

But the legal wrangling following the Margaret Cunneen saga meant the report was likely a long way from being delivered.

As well, the related High Court decision on ICAC's jurisdiction had raised expectations that its findings, when delivered, may not be as explosive as initially feared by the Liberals.

The NSW Electoral Commission's intervention has changed all that – thanks, it must be noted, to the NSW Liberal party's intransigence on the matter.

The questions that flow from all this include: what did Baird – who holds a ex-officio position on the NSW Liberal state executive – know about the matter?

Also in the spotlight is the commission's decision to highlight the role of then NSW Liberal finance director, now Turnbull government cabinet secretary, Senator Arthur Sinodinos.

The committee pointedly raised in its finding the evidence given to ICAC outlining the Senator's involvement in dealings between the party's finance committee, of which he was a member, and the Free Enterprise Foundation.

That has just created a major headache for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on the eve of a federal election.

 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mike-bairds-frankenstein-moment-commission-turns-on-the-nsw-liberals-over-donations-scandal-20160323-gnq08v.html

poor Arfur ...

Always caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Only two short years ago, the career of comrade Arfur really seemed to be on the slide, as he came under investigation for his involvement with that well-known champion of good governance & corporate proprietary, Eddie Obeid (“Free Enterprise foul-up: election commission savages NSW Liberals”, yesterday).

Arfur had a really great gig going with Australia Water Holdings (AWH), where he was paid $200,000 a year as Chairman for working an estimated maximum of 45 hours a year, while complaining about the excessive travel time involved in his attendance at board meetings.

AWH apparently slipped a political donation of $75,000 to the Liberal Party back then but, like any Chairman worth his salt, Arfur claimed he knew nothing about that. He also apparently didn’t realise that he stood to bank a cool $20m if AWH won a major contract it was pursuing with Sydney Water.

In the miracle that is modern politics, Arfur rose from the dead & was appointed as Cabinet Secretary for wunderkind Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull.

However, like all things Liberal, Arfur’s latest gig went south today with new revelations about secret & alleged illegal political donations to the NSW Liberal Party via the party’s Free Enterprise Foundation, whose Treasurer was – you guessed it – the one & only Arfur!!

Insiders remain unsure whether Arfur will protest his innocence by claiming he was “just following orders” or whether he might pursue the tried & proven Downer defence strategy & claim he just can’t remember.

Either way, poor Arfur is just another Liberal “dead man walking”.