OGP – NATIONAL ACTION PLAN – POLITICAL DONATIONS This second submission from Accountability Round Table suggesting changes to the Open Government Partnership Draft National Action Plan addresses Commitment 4.1, the commitment to examine the ‘framework of donations to polit

LIMITATIONS TO POLITICAL FINANCING This post reproduces Ken Coghill’s Supplementary submission 48 to JSCEM, specifically on political campaign financing. Accountability Round Table has made two submissions to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ inquiry into the Commonwe

POLITICAL FUNDING and PARTY RULES Following on from our JSCEM submission on political donations by Colleen Lewis, this post reproduces Ken Coghill’s submission 48 to JSCEM, also on political funding and donations to parties. Accountability Round Table has made two submissions to

POLITICAL FUNDING – THE KEY CHANGES NEEDED Accountability Round Table has made two submissions to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ inquiry into the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016. This standing committee inquiry is a regular occurrence after e

Marian Sawer is Emeritus Professor and Public Policy Fellow, School of Politics and International Relations, ANU. She has contributed the following article to John Menadue’s “Pearls and Irritations” blog, giving a detailed analysis of Australia’s political dona

Colleen Lewis Adjunct Professor, National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, and ART member has written for The Conversation on political donation reform. The article below is republished from The Conversation using Creative Commons Licence. When political self-interest

Submission from the Accountability Round Table to the Interim Working Group Posted on September 5, 2016 by ogpteam This is a full reproduction of a submission received from the Accountability Round Table on 4 September 2016. On Saturday, the AGM of the Accountability Round Table Ltd t

Colleen Lewis makes a new contribution to the debate on the conflict of interest inherent in political donations, especially when those donations are made by big corporations and effectively hidden from scrutiny. “Political funding is a fundamental public interest matter.”

The Age quotes Accountability Round Table’s Ken Coghill on the offer by Ken Ong, the council’s chair of planning, to provide in the order of $200,000 to fund an election campaign in exchange for the Deputy Mayoral position. Ken Ong “buying political power” acco

The Victorian Ombudsman has called for more powerful laws to reveal the extent of political donations from property developers to curb the perception that Victorian governments are captive of developers interests. Two news articles detail her findings.   Victorian Ombudsman calls

This is Cristina Neesham’s address in text form, on the role of culture in shaping responsibility and responsible behaviours of those engaged in lobbying and political donations. This was one of the talks  given to ICAN, The Independent Community Accountability Network on the th

Below is the text of an address on the noxious effects of money and lobbying on Government decision-making given to ICAN, The Independent Community Accountability Network by Associate Professor The Hon. Dr Ken Coghill. This talk was given at an event held on Wednesday 28th October 201

This  article was published in The Conversation https://theconversation.com/budgets-45m-slush-fund-for-mps-is-an-unethical-use-of-public-money-42116 Ken Coghill is Associate Professor at Monash University, and a member of ART Budget’s $45m slush fund for MPs is an unethical use of pub

Following the revelations of the NSW  Independent Commission Against Corruption into donations and political influence,  in June 2014, the NSW Government established an Expert Panel under the leadership of Dr Kerry Schott. This panel was to consider and report on long term reform of e

The Queensland Greens have replied to our request for commitments to accountability and integrity measures prior to the Queensland election. The original text of the letter from Andrew Bartlett, the convenor of the Queensland Greens can be found here. Their response covers both genera

The Queensland Labor Party has given a comprehensive response to our request for comment on matters of anti corruption prior to the Queensland state election. The full response letter from the Hon Tim Mulherin, Deputy Leader of the Opposition is linked here, but a summary of the key p

Colleen Lewis calls for transparency on donations and a proper political donations regime in Victoria in her article in The Age. Political donations: Victoria’s big secret. She writes, “What Victorians need to know, from any party fielding candidates in the forthcoming ele

This briefing paper was produced on 14th of October 2014 to assist parliamentary debate on the IBAC amendments otherwise known as ‘The  Integrity  Legislation  Amendment  Bill  2014’. The researcher, Parliamentary Librarian Catriona Ross writes, “This  Research  Brie

ART has written to the leaders of the three major parties contesting the Victorian State Election on November 29th, seeking their views on the redressing of three serious deficiencies in Victoria’s democratic governance arrangements if re-elected in the forthcoming State Election. The

The NSW Government has established a panel of experts to investigate the potential for further reforms to election funding laws. The panel members are Dr Kerry Schott (Chair), former Labor Deputy Premier The Hon. John Watkins and former Liberal Shadow Attorney General Mr Andrew Tink A