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There was an interesting article in the Saturday paper by Mike Seccombe which touches on donations which are legal. The influence which is bought through donations which are not examined by bodies such as ICAC are a potential cause for concern and might be best addressed with a Federal ICAC, given how effective the NSW commission has been.
NSW is lucky to have its ICAC. The rot certainly runs deep within the NSW Liberal party, and the excuses for forgotten fact or misleading testimony become ever more bizarre. Most recently we have NSW Upper House MP Marie Ficarra giving 'unknowingly false evidence', only to have had her memory set straight by a diary entry relating to her sick Schnauser. That a member of the state government's memory is inextricably linked to the welfare of her pet pooch is concerning in itself, but that this is a credible explanation for giving false testimony to ICAC does stretch credulity.
It is time to see prosecutions for those lying under oath.
There are also many unanswered questions swirling around new Premier Mike Baird. From undeclared donations, to the apparently preferential treatment he gave a donor, Roger Massy-Greene, there is much more that the new Premier needs to explain. In echoes of the Nick De Girolamo appointment to a board position for which he was unqualified (an appointment approved by Baird), Massy-Greene was given a lucrative government consultancy and a board position soon after donations from his company were received by the Liberals. There are more details on that story here.
The Baird-Abbott connection goes beyond geography (they both represent electorates in the Manly area). They are also connected by their funding source, which is every bit as murky as everything else that ICAC has revealed about the NSW Liberal party. The connection is John Caputo, a name that will likely become as notorious as Nick Di Girolamo as ICAC's case surrounding his activities unfolds. That in turn will draw both the NSW Premier and the PM into the quagmire. As the ICAC hearing days roll on, they appear to be moving ever closer to calling Tony Abbott to appear. More details on that here.
But of course there is more. The tentacles of the NSW funding machine stretch into Federal politics. Fundraisers for Hockey have refunded large sums of money which came from those dark channels recently exposed by ICAC. And in addition to that there are the opaque activities of the North Sydney Forum. The website certainly gives you the impression membership (paying them money) gives you unparallelled access to Joe Hockey. While likely not illegal, it does seem highly inappropriate, and certainly unprecedented. I expect the touted court proceedings won't proceed very far. Certainly not as far as 'Loud-Mouth' Newman's latest legal difficulties which will cost Qld tax-payers even more money.
Federally, a cloud has also descended over Karen McNamarra, who has faced questions over electoral fraud. As Peter Wicks argues, not only has the Abbott government delivered very poor outcomes for the people of Dobell, they have done so after campaigning that the former constituents of Craig Thomson deserved better representation. It seems they still deserve better representation.
And in other revelations (unrelated to ICAC)... The once clean record of Kathy Jackson is becoming ever more tarnished as Fairfax now reveals that the HSU is seeking the repayment of $250,000 that she is reported to have syphoned off into an opaque slush fund. Jackson is someone who has strong support from Tony Abbott, and is also linked through her fiancee Michael Lawler, a family friend of Abbott and an Abbott appointee to the Fair Work Commission.
With the up-coming Royal Commission into Unions, and with the likelihood that it will look into what went on at the HSU, it seems Tony Abbott might be collateral damage to the commission he actually called. Australia's most rapidly disliked PM may soon see his reputation sinking further, as if it wasn't already close to rock bottom. Then add to that his likely appearance at ICAC to answer questions surrounding the NSW Liberal party and we may see a new PM before Xmas as Abbott is forced to step aside.
We have a shambles of a Federal government, about to deliver an unpopular and confusing budget, who are losing the confidence of business leaders, and in the background are facing difficult questions. Things are reaching crisis point.