By Rachel Eddie
The Victorian Labor and National parties have opposed a ban on donations from the property industry, as the state’s anti-corruption watchdog found a developer showered the major parties with cash to gain access and attempt to influence lucrative planning decisions.
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission on Thursday recommended that Premier Daniel Andrews establish a taskforce to consider whether the state’s donations regime “would be strengthened by identifying and prohibiting high-risk groups (including, but not limited to, property developers) from making political donations to political entities and state and local government candidates”.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says IBAC’s report’s 34 recommendations will be given “appropriate consideration”.Credit: Wayne Taylor
IBAC’s Operation Sandon found developer John Woodman paid almost $1.2 million to two former Casey Council mayors in exchange for their support, and sought to influence the major parties and their candidates with almost $1 million in donations and other payments over nine years.
In 2015, Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass also recommended the government consider banning donations from developers, as NSW and Queensland have done.
Tobacco, liquor and gambling entities are also unable to make donations in NSW.
An independent panel in Victoria is reviewing the effectiveness of 2018 electoral reforms, which stopped donors from gifting more than $4670 in each four-year election cycle, and could recommend further amendments to limit undue influence.
The organisational wings of Victorian Labor and the Nationals, in separate party submissions to the review earlier this month, both argued against banning specific industries from making donations. The submissions were made in the weeks before IBAC tabled its report.
“Victorian Labor does not support targeting specific industries for bans or limitations on political donations. We draw the expert panel’s attention to the IBAC’s discussion regarding the legal barriers that may prevent the imposition of such a ban,” Labor’s assistant state secretary Cameron Petrie wrote in the party’s submission.
“We consider that risks relating to undue influence by specific industries is appropriately and proportionally managed by the transparent and strict donation and disclosure regime and the prohibition on anonymous donations provided by the 2018 reforms to the Electoral Act, as well as sufficient resourcing of the VEC’s compliance divisions.”
As part of a special report on corruption risks from donations and lobbying, IBAC acknowledged in October that banning donations could conflict with the implied freedom of political communication.
John Woodman on Thursday.Credit: The Age
But a High Court challenge to the NSW ban found such a conflict was acceptable because the rule was aimed at the legitimate purpose of preventing and reducing the risk of corruption.
The Nationals said it strongly objected to a ban on donations from law-abiding people and organisations.
“Freedom of speech and the right to participate in the political process are fundamental parts of our system of government. Restricting the rights of some to participate in our democracy based on a section of the community’s view on an issue is wrong,” the minor Coalition party said in its submission to the review.
“Given the transparency now in place around political donations, should Victorian voters have an objection to a party because of who may or may not have supported them financially, they are able to express that objection at the ballot box.”
The Liberal Party did not address the proposition in its submission.
Following the release of IBAC’s report, the Accountability Round Table, which advocates for improved government transparency, said Operation Sandon showed how easy it was to buy influence.
“NSW banned donations from property developers more than a decade ago and all other states should do likewise,” the group said.
The Victorian Greens on Thursday renewed calls to ban the property industry from making donations, given planning decisions could reap developers millions of dollars. The minor party, in its submission to the independent review, also said a ban should be extended to the gambling industry.
“The ban should extend to all forms of political donations from property developer and gambling entities, including fundraising dinners and other events that sell access to government ministers or opposition spokespeople,” the Greens said in its submission.
Operation Sandon exposed the ability of donors to buy access to decision-makers. Woodman was able to dine with Andrews in 2017 by winning a $10,000 bid at a fundraising event.
No adverse findings were made against Andrews or any government minister, but both major parties were tarnished by the report.
Andrews on Thursday said the government would consider all IBAC’s 34 recommendations with the hope of enacting them, but was circumspect when asked directly if he thought property developers should be prohibited from making political donations.
“You’ve got to have a mind to being able to make laws that can be enforced [given] freedom of association, freedom of political involvement, all of those things. This is not quite as simple as it might seem sometimes,” Andrews said.
“You don’t want to make laws that all they do is finish up in court and finish up being challenged.”
He said he would await the outcome of the independent review but that he was open to going harder on fundraising rules.
Opposition Leader John Pesutto said the Victorian public wanted transparency and that the opposition would look at all of IBAC’s recommendations. He did not directly answer if property developers should be banned from making donations.
Sandon centred on issues first publicly raised by The Age in 2011 and again in 2018 around land deals at the City of Casey and the outsized influence of Woodman.
Woodman and Geoff Ablett, one of the former mayors and Liberal members found to have received cash in exchange for support, denied wrongdoing. Sam Aziz, the other former mayor implicated, did not formally respond to IBAC but has previously denied he was corrupt.
The Nationals, the Labor Party and the premier’s office were contacted for comment on Saturday.
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