Donations look terrible

WARREN JONES- ACTING EDITOR

Am I missing something here or is the whole political donations issue a no-brainer?

I’m not saying that everyone who gets a political donation does a favour for the donator at the expense of the public, but let’s just look at it logically for a moment.

The first question to ask is what is the motivation for the developers or businesses to give these donations.

I would think the vast majority of donators aren’t giving out of zeal for a particular party, and I know for a fact that many developers give to a number of different parties.

So why fork out big bucks?

The answer has to be that they get something in return.

Maybe it’s worth their money just to get noticed by the people in charge; maybe it’s more complicated than that.

The other big issue is the conflicts of interest donations cause.

How is it that in a culture where stupid acts can bring a political career crashing to its knees, the government can take large sums of money from people and be trusted to make unbiased decisions on their proposals?

It’s not fair on the politicians either because even if they are being completely honest they still end up looking crooked.

The problems seem pretty clear and it is great that the idea of reform seems to be gaining momentum.