This week the Coalition and Labor were keen to sell their economic plans for Australia. Voters might be listening more carefully if the costings of political parties had not blunted their messages.

Fairfax reported on the goings on of Parakeelia, the Liberal-associated company that provides software services to MPs at a cost of $2,500 per member to track voter behaviour. Parakeelia then donates to the Liberal party.

“Jobs and growth”. Swings and roundabouts.

Tony Windsor accuses Barnaby Joyce of 'self-interest' over Santos Nationals donations Read more

Crikey reported for a lazy $10,000 you could get to see Labor shadow ministers this week at a business soiree.

“Putting people first”. For $10,000.



Then the independent candidate for New England, Tony Windsor, released a list of the mining company Santos’ political donations to the federal Nationals, around the same time as the Coalition was trying to kill off the water trigger.

Santos rejected the allegations categorically, pointing out their (publicly reported) donations to Labor were actually higher than to the Nationals since 2011. Santos reports all donations, not just those above the $13,000 cap.

Of these three examples, it could be fine, but it kinda looks bad. Because of the lack of transparency and national donation inconsistency, who could tell? The only thing that is clear is that it is bad for the politicians and bad for the public.

Why? For the public, it feeds into a lack of confidence and trust in politicians and that has an impact on the political debate and voter engagement.

For the politicians, as the former Liberal party fundraiser Michael Yabsley pointed out, reputation damage is a thing.

“You have the damage that has been done to the reputations of many, many individuals, to the reputations of many companies and the reputations of the major political parties,” Yabsley told Four Corners.

“It all points to the absolute case to do away with the system of political fundraising that we currently have.”

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is one who has long believed there should be a ban on donations from corporations and unions, which only leaves those on the electoral roll. The Labor elder John Faulkner wanted to end the campaign finance arms race in 2009.

Turnbull restates belief in donations cap but does not commit to act Read more

So if the public don’t like the look of it and the politicians and companies don’t like the feel of it, perhaps it might be time to act.

Option 1. Real-time disclosure.

Option 2. Spending campaign caps.

Option 3. Another look at public funding.



Option 4. All of the above.

No matter who you vote for on 2 July, the first vote should be to clean up political donations.