NSW Libs corrupt to the core
We know that capitalism’s a corrupt system, run by crooks. The central crime on which it relies, the bosses profiting by stealing the wealth created by workers, is not going to be exposed in any of its tribunals. But that doesn’t diminish the minor pleasure of seeing aspects of the system’s crooked workings exposed to the light of day.
The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) this month heard that a “substantial” portion of $700,000 donated to the NSW Liberals before the last state election came from illegal sources, including property developers, who are supposedly banned from donating.
Chief Liberal fundraiser Paul Nicolaou agreed in private evidence that the party’s Free Enterprise Foundation was used to hide money from prohibited donors. As the existence of various hitherto unheard-of Liberal Party fundraising bodies came to light, so too did the all-important figures of how much it costs to be Joe Hockey’s friend.
To become a member of the North Sydney Forum, a fundraising body run by Hockey’s North Sydney Federal Electoral Conference, costs an annual fee of $5,500, for which you get five boardroom events with him. Corporate and business members pay $11,000, which gets them an extra “VIP boardroom function”, while private patrons (Hockey’s really special friends) enjoy 10 boardroom events for a mere $22,000.
Once again unable to land a blow on the Liberals because they agree with them, Labor in the same week offered business leaders a $3,300 pre-budget boardroom lunch with Bill Shorten.
NSW Premier Mike Baird has predictably declared he is “shocked and appalled” at evidence of illegal payments. It would hardly benefit the system to acknowledge to the rest of us that this is business as usual.
Paul Nicolaou has resigned as chairman of the party’s chief fundraising body, the Millennium Forum. He has also gone on indefinite “personal leave” from his day job as chief executive of the NSW branch of the Australian Hotels Association. Former NSW energy minister Chris Hartcher and Baird’s newly appointed police minister Mike Gallacher have also fallen on their swords as revelations about another slush fund, Eightbyfive, have emerged.
But despite the odd sacrificial goat, what is really clear from ICAC is that the rich don’t think the law should apply to them.
Embattled coal mogul and property developer Nathan Tinkler’s Patinack Farm horse stud paid $66,000 to Eightbyfive. Gazcorp, the developer of the controversial Orange Grove shopping centre in Liverpool, paid $137,000, while the Obeid- and Sinodinos-linked company Australian Water Holdings paid $183,000. Orange Grove was given the green light after the Coalition won the state election.
So great is the born-to-rule mentality of the bosses that they can never get enough. Their attitude to parliament is abundantly clear. It’s not about democracy. It’s all about parliament as another instrument for maximising profits – and quickly.
Hear the pitiful lament of poor Nathan Tinkler, exposed at ICAC. His property development group made tens of thousands of dollars in donations before the 2011 election. He complained in an email after the election that he had “donated to the nats” and they were doing “fuck all” to approve a proposal by his company Buildev for a $1 billion coal terminal in Newcastle. “We had a bunch of deadbeats before and now we have a bunch of pricks scared to make a decision.”
This is the contempt the ruling class has even for their own. You can see the same thing in the ICAC evidence given by Marie Ficarra before she too fell on her sword. She was the former parliamentary secretary to Barry O’Farrell, responsible for encouraging wealthy developers and the like to “retain the services” of Eightbyfive. Asked about Hartcher’s adviser Tim Koelma, Ficarra said he had to be pointed out to her once outside state parliament on Macquarie Street, because staffers such as Koelma were “faces that come and go, we don’t speak to them”.
As for the rest of us, we are even more faceless. Unless, of course, we stand and fight. Then they notice us. While the laws should not apply to them, they can’t get enough of them when it comes to attacking our unions.
