Page 279 - Week 01 - Thursday, 10 February 2022
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That party is the ACT Greens, and it turns out that the party that is always asserting moral superiority is actually the party that has profiteered at ACT taxpayers’ expense. This is a party which got an unjustifiable windfall from taxpayers’ money and is refusing to pay it back yet spends all its time complaining about the ethical standards of others and the problem with capitalism and capitalists. It looks very much to me like the Greens have become the very capitalists that they complain about.
This is very much the party of “Do as I say, not as I do.” These are the real estate moguls who complained about landlords while counting the money from their tenants. They are the same party that complain about political donations and where they come from but this party, at a federal election, pocketed a $50,000 donation from the CFMEU. That is an organisation, a union, that is about construction, forestry and mining, and it gets a lot of money from poker machines, but the Greens were happy to take their money.
Let me come to what has happened in this shabby affair of the Greens pocketing taxpayers’ money. In the ACT, as in all jurisdictions in Australia, public funding is provided at elections for candidates and parties, to reduce the risk of corruption in the political system. We all agree with that. The funding is meant to cover some of the expenses of elections so that parties and candidates are not so reliant on donations. It is a good thing. We all agree with that.
I note that the Greens have come into this place and said that they would rather that amount be less, but then they take every single cent that they get. They are quite happy to argue against it but then take every single cent. They are profiteers at ACT taxpayers’ expense. They pretend to be purists while they are putting their hands in the pockets of ACT taxpayers. It is not meant to be a windfall for candidates to make a profit from an election. In fact, the JACs committee did an inquiry into the ACT election and in their report they made this point:
The Committee considers it is reasonable to limit public funding to not exceed a candidate’s electoral expenditure.
A tri-party committee agreed with that. But what became apparent from the ACT Electoral Commission report is that the ACT Greens—along with Belco Bill; that is the sort of category we are now putting the Greens in—made a profit of $188,771 at the 2020 election, at the expense of ACT taxpayers.
My understanding is that they have since found some receipts in the top drawer that they had not declared, and they have adjusted that amount so that they are only in profit for about $176,000. Mr Braddock may clarify how much money they actually made. I think it is slightly less than the $188,000; the profit might be slightly less. But since then the Greens have been out there boasting about this. They are pretty cock-a-hoop about it, and they have opened up a new office in Braddon in celebration.
Let me quote from some of the social media reports. There are lots of life’s little emojis that go with them. One says:
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