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Political parties show double standards on corruptionThe Member for Gippsland East, Craig Ingram, has today condemned the double standards of Victoria’s three main political parties and called on them to clean their own secret slush funds. By Craig Ingram - 9th June 2004 - Back to News "In the past few weeks in parliament and the media we have heard much from the party politicians about police corruption and what powers are required to root it out," Mr Ingram said.
"These parties have had ample opportunities to investigate and establish real disclosure provisions and declare where the millions of dollars that mysteriously appears at every election from mysteriously titled associated entities comes from and
"It is widely known that the major parties have all established organisations to hide the money trails including the Cormack Foundation, John Curtin House, Labour’s Progressive Business, the Greenfield’s Association and the Free Enterprise Association,
"The latest to attract the attention and ire from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) are Doogary Pty Ltd and Pilliwinks Pty Ltd, which have mysteriously donated over one million dollars over the past few years to the National Party.
"The AEC has for the past decade made repeated representation to the Federal Parliament and the political parties to address and remove the potential for secrecy and corruption surrounding donations and fundraising, but all calls have landed on deaf ears.
"In 1998 the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) stated that ‘There has been an unwillingness by some to comply with disclosure; others have sought to circumvent its intent by applying the narrowest possible intention of the legislation’.
"It also highlighted that a further objective was ‘to prevent political corruption by making the financing of political parties and candidates as transparent as possible.’
"In 2001, the AEC recommended that all those involved in an arrangement found to be contriving to avoid disclosure should be subject to a financial penalty sufficient to act as a deterrent to engaging in such arrangements.
"What’s the difference between political corruption and police corruption and organised crime?
"How can the Victorian community trust our political leaders if they are not prepared to accept the same level of scrutiny as the police to root out corruption,?" Mr Ingram concluded.
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: news@gippsland.com
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