MEDIA RELEASE - 1 February 2018

$14.8m in political donations revealed - corrupting influence demands reform

Greens democracy spokesperson Senator Lee Rhiannon has called on the Prime Minister to withdraw the government’s seriously flawed electoral funding Bill following the release today of the AEC data on political donations and payments made over the previous financial year.

For the 2016-17 financial year over $207 million was paid to political parties, which includes public election funding.

MEDIA RELEASE - 17 January 2018

Turnbull pathetic response on fighting corruption – another leadership failure

The Prime Minister’s statement that he is not yet fully persuaded on the need for a national corruption watchdog demonstrates Turnbull’s woeful lack of leadership on the critical issue of restoring people’s confidence in our democratic processes and public institutions, the Greens democracy spokesperson Senator Lee Rhiannon said.

Senator McKenzie should be required to repay $2279.67 she falsely claimed to attend a shooting awards event, Greens democracy spokesperson Senator Lee Rhiannon said.

“Special Minister of State and the Finance Minister Senator Mathias Cormann should immediately direct the Deputy Leader of the Nationals to repay the money in full,” Senator Rhiannon said.

“Senator McKenzie has broken the rules. She stated she could claim the money in her capacity as Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Shooting. However, this is incorrect. 

Now Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has opened the door to a national anti-corruption body he should engage with the National Integrity Committee (NIC) set up last month to advise policy makers on the best model. 

Commenting on the Prime Minister’s policy shift the Greens democracy spokesperson, Senator Lee Rhiannon said, “The Prime Minister will undermine his own announcement that he is considering a national anti-corruption body if he continues to advocate for a model similar to the Victorian IBAC.

Lee Rhiannon calls on the University of Wollongong to restore student democracy

Greens NSW Senator Lee Rhiannon has condemned the decision of senior management at the University of Wollongong to replace a democratically elected student president and is calling on Vice-Chancellor Paul Wellings to restore student democracy after the overturning of results of the recent Wollongong Undergraduate Students’ Association (WUSA) election.

MEDIA RELEASE - 6 December 2017

Foreign donations ban- government admits big money corrupts

Commenting on the government’s bill to ban political donations from foreign entities, Greens democracy spokesperson Senator Rhiannon says that the logic should be extended to donations from domestic sources and the Greens will move amendments to that effect.

“With this bill, the Turnbull government has admitted that big money corrupts politics,” said Senator Rhiannon.

On Tuesday, 5 December 2017, Lee gave the following speech in the Australian Senate on the connection between capitalism and deregulation, privatisation and the undermining of unions. 

The responsibility for the growing inequality and most of the serious environmental problems Australia faces can be attributed to the major political parties – the Liberal, National and Labor parties.

These three parties over the past century, in league with the corporate world and big media, have played a key role in the degradation of our natural environments on a massive scale. From relentless logging, industrial pollution, ever-increasing carbon emissions and traffic madness, the list of environmental catastrophes and crises that they have facilitated is very long.

While elections usually result in a hung Senate, with neither Labor nor the Coalition having a majority, this outcome occurs only occasionally in the House of Representatives where government is formed. 

The last time this happened was in 2010 when Labor under Julia Gillard formed government by relying on support from the sole Green MP Adam Bandt and lower house Independents. Prior to that there had not been a hung House of Representatives election result since the second World War.