Friday, September 2, 2016

Just Chinese-Linked Donations?

This rings true:

"Everyone in Australian politics is chasing cash. It's not a random or rogue activity. Everyone. That's the hard fact of the matter. In the 1980s and for most of the 1990s, political fundraising was highly centralised - a handful of people, controlling a single pipeline. The prize was drumming up dollars for television advertising campaigns. Now the process is hardwired into organisational structures of political parties and their associated thinktanks: lots of people, chasing dollars to fund their campaigning activities (which cover a much greater field of activity than during the quaint analogue period) and also cover their own operating costs. It's more prolific, and it's more diffuse, and inside the system, effective fundraisers are rewarded - it helps them aggregate power. For someone like [Sam] Dastyari, who has been a state secretary and who would probably struggle to tell you accurately how much cash he's raised for Labor over the years, an inconvenient bill just north of $1,000 is lunch money, nothing you'd give even 10 seconds thought to." (On political donations, Canberra is sleepwalking into its own integrity crisis, Katharine Murphy, The Guardian, 2/9/16)

This too is revealing:

"As for China's interest in Australian politics - a recent investigation by the ABC found Beijing is now the largest source of foreign-linked donations in this country. Businesses with connections to China coughed up more than $5.5m between 2013 and 2015, according to that report. A separate report by Fairfax Media said the Western Australian division of the Liberal party had benefited to the tune of half a million dollars in the past couple of years from donations from Chinese businesspeople with links to the foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop." (ibid)

But can you imagine the ABC, or Fairfax, or Jonathan Freedland's Guardian ever raising the issue of Zionist-linked donations in Australia, let alone investigating them?

3 comments:

Grappler said...

The Zionists have been very clever - they masquerade as different entities and structures. Zionists conflate Zionism and Jewishness - whatever that is. Interestingly, on MW for instance, it is almost always Zionists that make that connection - not the anti-Zionists. So a "Jewish Community Organisation" or even the occasional Synagogue (neturei karta and a few others excepted) becomes a front for Israel - to the extent of putting the national flag of Israel on display. The Chinese need to learn - even their community organisations are called "Chinese". They should call them Confucian Community Organisation or Daoist Community Organisation. It's ok to receive a political donation from a religious/philosophical group after all.

MERC said...

Spot-on as always, G. Love your comments!

Grappler said...

From the ABC on this topic:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-01/better-regulation-of-all-political-finance-would-help-control-it/7805806?section=analysis

Note no mention of the "I" word, though Tham is right that the issue is broader than foreign sourced donations. What about those citizens who exercise influence and power in Australia against the interests of their country of domicile and in favour of a foreign country?

On another topic Israel has finally got round to indicting Mohammad el Halaby.

https://www.sott.net/article/327224-The-pot-calling-the-kettle-black-Israel-accuses-World-Vision-of-supporting-Hamas

Israel is now so seriously discredited in most of the world than no serious observer could believe that this is other than a trumped up charge.