Donations backflip – what the flies heard

From the blog of Lee Rhiannon, Greens MLC...

For a moment I would have loved to been one of the flies that hang around the NSW Labor government.

It is a weird thought but imagine being the proverbial on the wall when Premier Nathan Rees and his team were discussing their plan to ban developer donations.

This is a major back flip from a party that has ridiculed the Greens over the years for our work in advocating the same thing. So what was their motivation?

Labor would obviously be looking for a way to kill off all the bad news stories linking MPs with dodgy developers. And they would know, even more than the Green Democracy4sale team, that there are new scandals waiting to break.

I think they would have also weighed up how much money is involved. Developer money is moving over to the Coalition. Since 2007 NSW Labor has received $3.1 million compared to the Coalition's $2.2 million. The gap has closed from 50 to 30 per cent difference and there is every indication that the Coalition is set to win this race as the property industry move back to their traditional electoral allies.

And I reckon the flies hanging around the Premier would have some other tales to tell. When Labor came up with their grand plan to wipe the scandal sheet clean and out manoeuvre the opposition they would have been keen for some pay back.

Looking back over Labor's antics in recent weeks and the attacks they have launched against the Greens' fund raising activities it looks like a concerted plan to discredit the Democracy4sale project. This major research initiative of the Greens has played a central role in breaking many of the donation stories that have caused the government so much grief.

Senior government leaders have used dorothy dix questions, read more here