Mafia linked political donations show Liberal, Labor out of excuses on donations reform

Today's reports that the Mafia are attending political party fundraisers and donating to Liberal and Labor candidates puts the spotlight on the need for urgent overhaul of electoral funding laws, Greens democracy spokesperson Senator Lee Rhiannon said.

"The clean-up of party funding rules needs to start now. It's time to ban corporate political donations and tighten up disclosure requirements," Senator Rhiannon said.

"Allegations about political donations to the Liberal Party potentially influencing visa and employment decisions made by Liberal MPs are an example of why so few in the community have trust in our political institutions.

"The Greens will step up our calls for the Coalition and Labor to back our Bill for a ban on corporate political donations and will continue to work towards tight caps on individual donations.

"Current laws mean there is no requirement to disclose donations below $13,000. The Greens are calling for that to disclosure threshold to be reduced to $1,000 and for donations to be disclosed in real time.

"The Australian Federal Police identified a ‘lack of checks and oversights' in the political donation system back in 2007, yet we've seen no action from the major parties on donations reform.

"Limiting the corrupting influence of donations should be a bipartisan issue, and the alleged Mafia influence of Australian politics via political donations should be enough reason for Liberal and Labor to join the Greens in our call for electoral reform," Senator Rhiannon.

Contact - Brami Jegan 0487 350 880