Turnbull’s Liberals are all talk and no action on banning foreign donations.
Today I asked three simple questions of Special Minister of State Senator Mathias Cormann, in his capacity representing the Prime Minister in the Senate:
- When did the Federal Liberal Party last accept a foreign donation?
- When will the Prime Minister follow Bill Shorten’s lead and personally commit the Liberal Party to immediately cease accepting foreign donations?
- Does the Prime Minister agree with Senator Simon Birmingham’s comment about multi-million dollar foreign donations to the Liberal party, in which he said: “I don’t care who wants to give money to the Liberal Party.”
The Minister did not answer any of those questions.
He wouldn’t tell the Australian people when the Liberal Party last received a foreign donation.
He wouldn’t tell the Australian people when the Liberal Party will stop accepting foreign donations.
And he couldn’t even tell the Australian people that Malcolm Turnbull even cares about where donations to the Liberal Party are coming from.
More than 575 days since Labor introduced its plans to Parliament and more than a decade since Labor first committed to cleaning up political donations laws, the Liberals continue to delay, dawdle and distract.
And, unlike Labor, the Liberals continue to accept foreign donations.
The Liberals must get on with responding to the issues raised by JSCEM, they must announce a time-line for implementing this much needed reform and they must and immediately follow Labor’s lead and voluntarily stop accepting foreign donations until this issue is dealt with by the Parliament.