political donations
15 Jul 2009
No Such Thing As A Free Lunch With Turnbull
The Opposition Leader is rolling in cash donations from some of Australia's richest individuals, write Lee Rhiannon and Norman Thompson
Another dark and possibly stormy cloud is gathering over federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull today. The Greens democracy4sale investigation team has uncovered some unusual techniques used by the would-be prime minister to amass $1.1 million in the run-up to the 2007 federal election. These most recent revelations about the member for Wentworth’s fundraising efforts could prove highly embarrassing to Turnbull and further erode public confidence in his judgement and leadership qualities.
Concerns for Turnbull’s re-election prospects could well have been the impetus for the formation of the organisation known as the Wentworth Forum in the lead-up to the 2007 election. The boundaries of the Wentworth electorate had been changed to include Labor and Greens strongholds in Darlinghurst, Potts Point and Woolloomooloo. This traditional Liberal stronghold was now seen as marginal — with Labor having some chance if they picked up Greens preferences. And so the Forum was swept into being. It is Turnbull’s key fundraising body and a veritable cash cow.
Turnbull’s fundraising efforts have been largely managed by his friend — and veteran Liberal Party fundraiser — Michael Yabsley. With their intimate knowledge of how to tap rivers of gold from wealthy Australian donors, these two have proved to be a formidable team.
Yabsley brought considerable experience to the task of establishing the Wentworth Forum. Significantly, as Chair of the NSW Liberal Party’s Millennium Forum, Yabsley introduced a new style of political fundraising in Australia, one which put access to leading politicians centre stage when donations were solicited. Donors are able to make direct donations to the Wentworth Forum or they can become one of several types of Forum member, each with different levels of access to Turnbull. There are five categories of membership with different costs associated with each one: Member ($5500), Sponsor ($11,000), Patron ($16,500), Benefactor ($25,500) and Governor ($55,000).
When the Wentworth Forum was set up, Turnbull was environment minister in the Howard government. The workings of the Forum provide a clear insight into how donations can be used to buy access to a politician. A Wentworth Forum Member receives one seat at larger events organised by the Forum and tickets to three boardroom events. In contrast, a Governor gains a package of events, including hosting boardroom events, two tables at larger events, seating at all boardroom events and attendance at the Governors and Benefactors Dinner.
The individuals who have contributed to the Forum are a Who’s Who of Sydney’s finance, law and property worlds. At least 17 — including Turnbull himself, who has donated catering for Forum events — have been listed at least once during the past three years in the list of Australia’s 200 richest people, published annually in the Business Review Weekly. They include Frank Lowy of Westfield, Harry Triguboff of Meriton Apartments, former Macquarie Bank head Allan Moss, Phil Green, the former CEO of the failed investment company Babcock and Brown, the gaming machine manufacturer Len Ainsworth, John Symond of Aussie Home Loans, Charles Curran of Capital Investment Group and the property developer Bob Rose.
Kerry Stokes recently became a joint member of the Forum with William Warwick, who used Stokes’ Australian Capital Equity contact information when he joined. Warwick contributed an even larger amount through Jefferson Investments. The latter company was directed by the late Kenneth Parker, Stokes’s right hand man. While Parker was alive, Jefferson Investments and associated companies donated over $1.5 million dollars to political parties in Australia — largely to the Coalition.
Although Turnbull has elsewhere argued against foreign donations to Australian political parties, the Wentworth Forum was able to accept $64,000 from the wealthy American Peter Briger, Chairman and Director of the controversial "vulture company" Fortress Investment Group.
Throughout 2007, the money rolled in for Turnbull; the Forum raised over $1.1 million for his re-election campaign. A total of 92 individuals joined the Forum in this period, mainly as Members or Sponsors. There were only 10 people among the Patron and Benefactor group and one Governor. The latter was Bob Rose who listed his company as Coastal Hamlets, the development company for the controversial Catherine Hill Bay project.
Bob Rose’s companies did not donate to the Liberals after the 2007 election and Rose hasn’t renewed his Wentworth Forum membership. This change coincided with the federal Coalition losing government. Rose’s companies are generous donors to NSW Labor and have given almost $120,000 since mid–2007. Last March, the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett’s findings, allowed the Catherine Hill Bay project — which involves the development of some 700 homes — to go ahead.
Turnbull’s large war chest for the 2007 federal election was subsidised by almost $72,000 of his own money, mainly spent on the production of campaign material and direct mailing. Because of the electoral funding rules it is not possible to determine either how much the NSW Liberal Party spent on the Wentworth election or exactly how much Turnbull spent on his campaign. The estimates from other parties of the money he spent based on the amount of campaign materials produced and mailouts to electors range from $1.1 million to $1.5 million.
The Forum continues to raise money for Turnbull. The latest figures for the six months up to December 2008 show that it raised over $300,000 for the 2008–2009 year. Most of this money was from membership renewals, which provide the many levels of access to Turnbull. Only about $17,000 came from direct donations. More money will be received throughout 2009 as people renew their memberships.
One of the more contentious donors to the Forum is British American Tobacco Australia (BAT). Early on, only small amounts of money were paid by BAT for attendance at fundraising events. Then in December 2008, Bede Fennell, who is the Head of Public Affairs for BAT Australia, paid $8250 for a half-year Patron membership in the Forum to take effect in 2009. A further $16,500 was paid for a Patron membership in 2009–10. The Liberal Party reported this money as received from BAT.
There has been considerable controversy about political parties accepting donations from tobacco companies. After a strong community campaign in 2004, then federal Labor leader Mark Latham announced a ban on his party accepting tobacco related donations. The Greens have never accepted such money. But since mid–2007 the NSW Liberals have taken almost $175,000 from tobacco companies.
The Wentworth Forum activities do not sit easily with Turnbull’s earlier reform zeal for electoral funding when he was a humble backbencher.
In a February 2005 email to Woollahra councillors, he went on the public record in opposition to donations from companies and other groups. He wrote, "no political donations should be allowed unless they are: from citizens and/or persons on the electoral roll (i.e., no companies, unions, associations etc); subject to a cap; and donors should certify that the donation is either their own or their spouse’s money and has not been given to them by a third party."
Interestingly, in these comments Turnbull did not mention a cap on a candidate’s own money, which leaves him, as a very wealthy individual, with a distinct advantage. He spent over $600,000 of his money on the 2004 election. It is not known if the NSW Liberal Party also spent funds in Wentworth since this information is not required to be disclosed to the Australian Electoral Commission.
In his time as federal Opposition Leader, Turnbull has thwarted electoral funding reform, quite possibly judging that the current system gives the Liberals an advantage. When federal Labor and the Greens combined in 2009 voting to ban foreign donations and make contributions from other sources more transparent, the Coalition and Senator Fielding defeated it in the Senate.
Turnbull’s recent actions show that he is no longer a voice for electoral funding reform. He has no interest in turning off the Wentworth Forum’s river of gold.
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Finding out exactly how much was spent in the Liberal campaign for Wentworth in either 2004 or 2007 is exceedingly difficult. Federal election candidates such as Turnbull are not required to disclose their own personal contributions on their candidate returns, and parties are not required to show the campaign expenditure broken down by electorate.
Even with $1.1 million from donors, Turnbull must have contributed significant amounts of his own money to have paid for the flood of direct mail, advertising, pole posters, campaign offices etc. to win in 2007. These amounts are surely unprecedented in Australia’s electoral campaign history.
Now I understand why Mr Turnbull was so upset about the ute thing. Where he is coming from a gifted ute just makes the Prime Minister look cheap and tawdry. At least should Malcolm become PM he is indebted to quality people who know the value of cold hard cash.
Norman Thompson
Chris is correct about the lack of information regarding expenditure on campaigns in individual federal electorates.
If candidates do list expenditure and no donations people at the Australian Electoral Commission have told me it is safe to assume the expenditure was from the candidate’s own funds. This is the reason we can say Turnbull spent more than $600,000 of his own money in the 2004 campaign (at least $609,000) and most likely $71,772 of his own money in 2007.
Until the law is changed for greater transparency we never will know how much is spent in each electorate. People who watch all the campaign material coming out, ads, campaign office rental, and so on, can only make an educated guess.
The amount of money Turnbull spent, regardless of whether it is $1.1 million or over $1.5, is beginning a dangerous trend in Australian elections campaign.
Businessman Geoffrey Cousins is reported saying (ABC News on 20 Nov 2007) he has never seen the weight of spending in any one seat that Mr Turnbull was putting out in Wentworth.
“It must be well over $1 million just in this one seat, and in Australia, that’s an extraordinary amount of money. I mean, it’s starting to get like the American elections,” he said.
Do we want to go down the road to American style election campaigns? I don’t.
So we go down the Yanky style of electioneering.
Who cares? Their system seems to work.
I hear old Kev and Missus are’nt short a quid either.
Malcolm did his dough!
Big deal,maybe he will learn to read the electorate better in the future.Howard took his time, and old “honest John” don’t you love the irony, he did what it takes and said what he needeed to to nuzzle his way in.
“There will be no GST in my term as PM!”…yeah sure.
The soft socialists in at the moment are’nt going to dismantle the system, they have learnt to milk it!
Even “communist” countries like China and Russia are’nt doing too bad out of the Capitalists.
If I were a Green, I would be fast tracking my knowledge a bit more n the Science of Climate change and environmental and ecological issues.
Most of the time they are not particularly knowledgeable at all, except maybe for their leader,I have’nt heard much to convince me there is any more knowledge than year 10 level Science at best.
So why all this interest in Turnbull anyway, I would have thought Peter Garrett’s capitulation to the Nuclear mining industry would have everybody mildly interested in the environment in a blue funk.
Tsk Tsk Tsk Oli
Revilo, all the important issues you mentioned are intertwined with an open and well functioning democracy.
I believe an open and well functioning democracy depends on stopping what could become a chequebook democracy.
I received an email over night from a professor of economics at Clemson University in the USA. He sent it to me since he was leaving yesterday for Boston and didn’t have time to register in order to post on New Matilda.
From his email:
“Way to go! Good article. Unfortunately it sounds like Australia is trying to adopt the U.S. model of politics. I commented in a talk the other day to a group, that holding national political office must be so rewarding, either in terms of future income, prestige, or the rush they get from power, that most would sacrifice their mother, or at least the well being of the country to stay in power. I don’t get it. Somewhere along the way we have lost the reason why we have democracies.”
Norman Thompson
I can remember the Liberal member for Wentworth was ? (Peter) King. He was much respected in the electorate and was very bitter about the amount of money Malcolm threw around to get himself preselected as the member in his place and felt that money had bought out democracy. Clearly Malcolm had power in his sights as the use of his money. The Australian newspaper that keeps supporting Malcolm did ,early on in the Rudd reign, state “never get between Malcolm and a bucket of money” . Clearly the purpose of all that cash is to get the ulitmate power as PM.
It would be far healthier if political donations were completely banned in Australia and elections were funded by the taxpayer in a strictly equitable fashion (perhaps with a bit of affirmative action to encourage first attempt non-party or first attempt very tiny party participation in democracy).
I have voted Labor #1 all my life for the House of Reps up until the last election when the Rudd Labor betrayal over war, indigenous rights and climate change was glaringly apparent before election day - I accordingly voted Greens #1 and ALP #2.
Labor has simply become a national and international policy protection racket for big business backing business-as-usual greenhouse gas pollution and for Americans , pro-Americans and dual citizen racist Zionists backing Apartheid Israel’s slow Palestinian Genocide and the US Alliance Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 0.3 million, 2.3 million and 3-7 million, respectively) (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25184/42/ ).
Who should decent, anti-racist, pro-planet folk give their second preferences to next year after giving #1 to the decent, anti-racist, pro-planet Greens?
Nothing but a “split” can now save the anti-Indigenous Rights ALP (aka the Apartheid Labor Party , Apartheid Israel-supporting Labor party) which has been irretrievably “bought” (notably by Australia’s biggest white-collar criminal who was also Australia’s biggest racist Zionist crook to boot).
Top scientists and economists tell us that Carbon Trading (Emissions Trading Scheme, ETS) proposals are dangerous, fraudulent Ponzi schemes and that genuine, non-manipulatable, equitable Carbon Taxes are urgently required to help stop planet-threatening carbon burning (for expert scientist and economist opinions on Carbon Taxes versus ETS fraud see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/carbon-tax-ne… ).
I door-knocked for Mr Whitlam in 1975 - but if the Liberals under Malcolm Turnbull ditch the fraudulent Labor ETS “Ponzi scheme” and back an equitable and fair-dinkum Carbon Tax then they deserve to get the Greens voters’ #2 preferences (the Libs and the Labs being equally bad on foreign policy).
Malcolm Turnbull is already very strong on Biochar, Renewables and Energy Efficiency (in contrast to the fanatically pro-coal Labor incompetents) and now just has to accept the advice of top climate scientists and top climate economists and back a Carbon Tax for action over climate change AND electoral victory (with my #2 preference vote too).
I have never ever voted Lib (for reasons related not to economics but to post-1950 US Asian wars associated so far with 25 million excess deaths ) but next year I’ll certainly vote #1 Green and #2 Liberal if Malcolm Turnbull sees the light and completely differentiates from corrupt, Tammany Hall Labor and goes for realistic , urgent action over the #1 problem of Climate Change and adopts a Carbon Tax policy.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
I rather think that the Gordon Nuttall conviction in Queensland for accepting money from Miners and Developers, apparently for for corrupt purposes, may be a Red Light for a lot of these schemes. Maybe they will have to re-design them to hide them better.
I note that Capt’n “Margaret Thatcher” Bligh and her Government in Qld. have followed the NSW Labor Govt. in also charging for contact with Ministers.
May be some chance of this growing practice being nipped in the bud, before we get totally to the “Government for Hire to the Highest Bidder” that the Yanks and the Poms have made an art form of. I see signs of some worry already in some of the Qld. Ministers. I guess it will depend on People Power, and the Murdoch press (Courier Mail), which can not be counted on to press anti-corruption issues, except perhaps with a Labor Govt. Except that Bligh and Co. are also great friends with Big Business, particulars with Coal Miners and Developers, to the exclusion of all other interests, including Global Warming.
Rudd and Co. are also well and truly entrenched, with Big Business/Big Polluters lobbies having the greatest access to Federal Ministers, as proved by the so-called “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”, which is anything but, merely a transfer of Public Wealth to Private Business, so loved by the Corporates.
So really, we are already well down the road to “Government for the Highest Bidder”. And with all our major Media also part of the worst Corporates, I do not expect much of a campaign for truth and honesty in politics. Not when they also stand to gain by corruption.
And as for the Richest Person being the one most likely to succeed to Highest Office, you only have to look at just about every country in the world to see this is already firmly entrenched. Iran and Thailand have already shown how easy it is for very rich persons, or persons with access to state money, to buy very poor voters, and get elected. Of course, some vote rigging is also practiced to make sure.
The USA is known for being one place where only the very rich can ever try for President. I would say that it is quite likely that Turnbull, being an avid fan of things American (I am not), took his lead from there. Once you have made your billions from sometimes shonky business dealings (nay, almost always), the next step is always to aim for political POWER! But then, because these people get this power, they make the Laws, and some of those quite visibly shonky business dealings quickly become just ordinary BUSINESS, as usual! Dazza.