The Australian Electoral Commission’s latest political finance figures show how closely entwined are government and the development industry

Foreword It is remarkable that, as the Victorian Parliament Electoral Matters Committee said in April 2009, ‘Victoria, along with the Commonwealth, is amongst the least regulated jurisdictions in the western world in terms of political finance law.’ One of the consequences of this is not only the potential for undue influence to compromise the integrity...

Introduction: Money for nothing? For some years the heavy reliance of both major Australian political parties on developer donations has been known 1. One developer (Jeff McCloy) memorably told the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC, 2014b. p.5328T) he felt like a “walking ATM”. This sentiment was echoed by lobbyist Frank Dunlop, who told the...

This paper canvasses opinions and issues arising from the proposed ban on political donations from third party interest groups in the Election Funding, Expenditure and Disclosures Amendment Bill 2011, currently before the NSW Parliament, with particular reference to the implied freedom of political communication under the Commonwealth Constitution. One point to make is that significant...

Several existing papers explore the extent to which the cross-country variation in measures of democracy and political rights can be explained by the cross-country variation in foreign aid inflows. Using panel data, we explore the extent to which the variation over time in such measures can be explained by changes in aid inflows, thus providing...