Voice proves Australian politics needs more people and less money

How many good, old-fashioned sausage sizzles will have been held to raise money for the Yes or No cases by referendum day? Not many. Unless of course Bunnings gets in on the act by selling Vote Yes sausage sangas to the weekend shoppers. 

But then it would hardly be a good, old-fashioned sausage sizzle, would it? That would make it an enhancement to the big money that greases the wheels of Australian politics — including Wesfarmers, the owner of Bunnings.

Whether it’s Wesfarmers’ $2 million to the Yes campaign or Clive Palmer’s $2 million to the No campaign, this big money play is just plain wrong. Part of the enabling rationale is it’s all right because both sides do it, whether it’s an election campaign or referendum. 

One of the myths of politics — including the Voice referendum campaigns — is that it’s all about the “grassroots” element, the people who are seen but seldom heard. 

Sausage sizzles fit in conveniently with that paradigm. Claiming that people, ideas, policies and, yes, constitutional change are inspired by the forgotten people brings a missing legitimacy. As the prime minister earnestly told us when Parliament voted for the referendum to proceed: “Parliaments make laws, people make history.” Maybe. 

For the political class, the grassroots factor is an antidote to the Canberra bubble. Political leaders have many heartwarming stories about street walks and community meetings being their “source of truth”. The truth about politics today is a far cry from this grassroots nirvana.

You won’t need the Australian Electoral Commission report to tell you the funds raised to run the referendum campaigns will have come overwhelmingly from wealthy individuals and well-off entities. Sausage sizzles will not rate. They should.

The real issue is about the murky influence of big money in politics, and what that means for democracy. Are mega-donations altruistic, hand-on-heart contributions for the good of democracy, or are they about corporate reputation management? 

We usually never know unless integrity commissions and the courts tell us. And because we usually never know, what dopes would we be to give everyone who is in the business of either giving or receiving political donations the benefit of the doubt, that the transaction is for the greater good? The better choice, for the good of democracy, would be to give no-one the benefit of the doubt. We need to cap political donations by law to get big money out of politics. 

Instead of the referendum being an opportunity to show how political fundraising can be cleaned up, it has become a case study in the disproportionate power of big money. The fact that $100 million of exclusively private money, made up mainly of big donations, is in play in the referendum campaign matters. It’s a transparency issue. It’s not so much that disclosure laws need reforming. The real problem is that this kind of big money free-for-all is allowed to happen at all.

In staged drumroll announcements, leading philanthropists have donated to the Yes and No campaigns, with the Yes campaign leading the fundraising race by a country mile. 

Clearly some of the major donors have had second thoughts about the wisdom of coughing up in a major way. Take Qantas, with its $1 million donation to the Yes campaign being at the centre of the national carrier’s reputation turning to custard. Qantas has played a clumsy game with its corporate sanctimony, doing more harm than good to the horse it chose to back. 

The political class would have us believe that without big money, democracy would wither on the vine. That’s garbage. Let the grassroots fill the void. If 340,000 Australians, just 2% of the 17.5 million Australians eligible to vote in the referendum, donated $200, that would raise almost $70 million. 

The intrinsic benefit is that hundreds of thousands of voters would have a genuine, lived connection to the democratic process. Just as the small donors to charities get a buzz from the child they support, or the brick in the wall they sponsor to help build the local hospital, a small political donation can create authentic grassroots engagement. 

We need to put politics in touch with a large number of small donors, rather than a small number of large donors. 

The cold war of political fundraising needs to be stopped in its tracks before we see the complete Americanisation of Australian politics. As ALP heavyweight Stephen Loosley told me years ago: “Brother, in Australian politics money doesn’t talk — it screams.”

Does big money add to political discussion or does it drown out other speakers? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.