With all the hysteria going in NSW at the moment over political donations leading to direct ALP Govt favours, it is interesting to check out the ACT ALP donors list again:
http://www.elections.act.gov.au/pdfs/returns_07/politicalparties/AustralianLaborParty.pdf
There are only three, with two being neglible. The point made is the poker machine dollars collected by the Labor Club put over a quarter of a million dollars into the local ALP machine coffers. No wonder the ALP can afford to pay their Secretary a matching salary as their MLAs receive. (Cossey must be hoping his local guys don’t get the same idea as the feds and freeze wage rises for the year!)
It has been Labor Party policy to to retain exclusively by Clubs and not hotels in the ACT and you can see why when this much money is at stake. Though I am not sure why they care so much as the NSW hotels are second only to property developers as donors to the ALP in NSW.
ACT Labor has also one of the country’s lowest rates of tax on Club poker machine revenue in Australia, and they flexed the legislation to define the mandatory ‘community levy’ to inlcude ‘political donations’.
How ACT Labor MLAs decide they have no conflict of interest in gambling legislation is beyond me…
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