(Image: Mitchell Squire/Private Media)

In Australia, political donors get to call the shots in policy.

From 2013 to 2018, when Kenneth Hayne began his royal commission, the big banks and financial advisers controlled financial regulation via the Coalition government. They paid for that right: between 2010 and 2019 they gave $5.99 million in donations to the Coalition. It also helped that Arthur Sinodinos, Josh Frydenberg and Kelly O’Dwyer, successive ministers for financial regulation, were all former major bank executives, as is the current minister, Jane Hume. The big banks didn’t just dictate financial regulation, the Coalition gutted the corporate regulator ASIC for them as well.

The result? Tens of thousands of bank customers fleeced, gouged, ripped off and immiserated through a variety of ways identified by the royal commission, and a compensation bill running into many billions.

Until 2019, Crown got to dictate gaming regulation in Victoria and Western Australia — again with cowed, weak regulators. Since 2010, Crown has given the Victorian Labor Party more than $177,000 in contributions. It gave the Victorian Liberals nearly $274,000. It has paid the WA Labor Party nearly $290,000 and the WA Libs more than $460,000, as well as more than $60,000 to the WA Nationals. Crown also employed former Labor and Liberal politicians and former Andrews government staffers.

The result? Organised crime indulged, industrial-scale money-laundering permitted, problem gambling allowed to run unchecked, Australia’s border security undermined and treated with contempt. Crown’s only error was in NSW, where it paid the Liberals just $25,000 and NSW Labor $43,000. The Bergin inquiry in NSW, beginning in 2019 off the back of excellent journalism from Nine journalists, brought the whole thing undone, prompting painful inquiries in Victoria and WA.

And the biggest one of all — fossil-fuel interests dictate climate and energy policy. The major fossil-fuel companies have handed the major parties more than $9.5 million in donations since 2010 (not counting Clive Palmer’s donations to his own party). Unions opposed to climate action like the AWU and the CFMEU’s energy division have donated another $1.7 million to Labor. News Corp, committed to climate denialism and supporting the Coalition, has delivered millions of dollars in free advertising to the Coalition.

The result? A decade of inaction on climate, Australia becoming an international pariah facing punitive carbon tariffs, and countless missed opportunities for new jobs, investment and economic growth in boom industries, in favour of propping up dying industries like coal and gas.

Now we’re taking a gamble on another group of donors dictating policy — specifically the NSW government’s plan to end its lockdowns based on benchmarks inconsistent with the national reopening plan agreed by national cabinet, with a determination to reopen even while the NSW health system is under intense pressure, scores of people die every week and more than 1000 people are infected every day. As the nation’s most senior health economist Stephen Duckett noted: “This plan was developed by business for business.”

The NSW Liberals’ donors will indeed be happy to be able to reopen far sooner than if the NSW government was committed to getting case numbers down. In particular, the state’s clubs and pubs and casino will be beneficiaries. While it’s a smaller scale than the national level of donations, clubs’ and pubs’ peak bodies have given the NSW Coalition $1.7 million in donations since 2010 (including those from Star Casino).

The serviced office sector has also been a generous donor to the NSW Coalition — more than $580,000 since 2010, mainly from long-time Liberal supporters the Moufarrige family.

The stakes are much higher than for financial plundering by the banks or unchecked casino operators, and even higher, in the short-term, than for climate inaction. The best case scenario is a relatively small number of additional deaths and hospitalisations — sufficient that on a cost-benefit basis, reopening early is justified in terms of more jobs.

The worst case scenario is very scary. Thousands of additional deaths from COVID among both the unvaccinated and the vaccinated, as well as from other diseases and injury unable to be properly treated in a ravaged health system. And all for the bottom lines of club, pub and hotel operators and commercial property groups.

If the worst case, or a worse case, scenario comes true, will the political class reflect on the mechanisms that enable donors to control policy? Or will we continue with business-as-usual, with the mess each time left to yet another royal commission or special inquiry? Bet your house on the latter.