Rudd has made all political donations over $1000 subject to disclosure rules. Previously the limit was $10,000. That seems fair enough to me. Why should a person be outed as a supported of the Liberal party, and sacked from their job if they work in media or any other PC-tyranny industry for a donation of less than $10,000.
$1000 is FA. And after a few years of wage-fuelled Labor inflation it will be worth even less - about the same as a Cornetto, I predict.
What a wanker. This is straight-up resentment-based pandering to the mob. As if a donation of less than $10000 is going to sway any decision by any party in favour of the donor. Maybe it would sway a Woollongong Labor councillor, but that's not saying much.
If openness is so important to Rudd why not make all donations, of even less significant amounts than $1000 public? Because there is an opposing principle at work to openness, and that's privacy. As I alluded to above people should be able to donate as private citizens without everybody knowing about it because if one's poltical allegiances are known than the frothing PC hoardes can drag you out into the street and strip you of your dignity.
I work in the entertainment business. I understand that. Why do you think I blog under and assumed name? Privacy matters because the public are not always fair in their judgments.
I wish I could leave it at that, and just remark that Rudd is a block-head rabble-rouser, but there is more to this issue.
Rudd is saying we should open the debate of capping political donations from individuals and corporations. This is vintage Rudd. It's a committment to a committee. It's also two-faced. "I commit to have a think about this issue," says Rudd "leading you to believe that I take one position, so that I get your support, and then change my mind at my own convenience later."
It's not a commitment. It's not a commitment because it wont happen. There is no way Rudd is going to cap political donations because the ALP and the unions out-spent the Libs by a huge amount - about 30 million i recall - at the last campaign. Union money extorted from union members with a special levy (still in place) delivered victory to Rudd and his sectional interests.
I note that the cap will apply to individuals and corporations. If this does not include unions then Rudd just might bring the cap in. It would also be a partisan move and could easily be argued against in the house. I doubt he could pull it off. It would expose that he is working for the unions.
And that's the whole point, as I keep repeating. For Rudd, who fronts the ALP which is a front for the ACTU, to say that the Libs are the ones wanting secrecy is bare-faced cheek of the most insidious and disengenuous sort. The ALP are a huge fraud pulled over the public's eyes. They are an institutional lie. They are the same group of people as the union movement yet the operate under a different, and therefore false, name.
Full time union employees work for the ALP during every election campaign for FREE so no disclosures are required. Whether they say they work for the ALP officially is another story. Their adds might say "approved by Joe Thug of the Slackers Union" at the bottom but they are timed to perfection to deliver the exact same message as the ALP campaign in an given week. They work in this together behind the scenes. They do polling together, knock on doors for one another. All without a single declaration. They are in cohoots and NEVER let on to the Aussie public. They pretent to be two different bodies and by that ommission huge amount of money get spent on the ALP's campaignt that are never declared!
How dare Rudd accuse the Libs of secrecy. The hypocrisy is staggerring.
Rudd is up to his neck in lies. He knows it too. That's why he knows this cap will never fly. He must divorce the ALP from the union movement. Tony Blair did it in opposition. Rudd will have to do it in office. Whether he has the motivation is unclear -he's already won the election without needed to - but it is clear that he will need the donations of the corporate sector to do it. The link between the unions and the ALP is mainly financial. This link must be severed by Rudd. Once the link is severed he's got to get his money from somewhere.
Rudd is going to need a shitload of money from business in Aus to pull this off because he will probably need to mount a TV campaign against the unions himself to succeed. Any cap on corporate donations will have to be non-existant or so high as to be effectively non-existant. With the inflation threat that will have to be very high indeed.
If this cap goes ahead, and if it does not include unions, you'll know that Rudd is truly a union puppet and will always be so.
