Except that the ALP are very good at local polling that tells them chances of winning seats. Back when Labor took Corangamite off an Lib who had held the seat forever and there was a large swing needed, most gave Labor no chance, but local polling adding to a redistribution showed different, so they through big dollars at it.
Now even if you are running for Council it can cost $10K or more to run a campaign to win. I was always a cheapskate and relied my good looks and sparkling personality.
Greens have almost the exact same system including tithing, with the exception that candidates are pretty much not allowed to find their own campaigns.
Partly because the Greens have traditionally been upper house focused and partly to weed out fkwits.
"Bruce Billson had begun drawing a $75,000 a year salary from the Franchise Council of Australia before he left parliament in 2016. He failed to disclose to the parliamentâs register of interest that he had started drawing a salary from the lobby group. He also failed to disclose that he had been appointed a director of the council.
It is a rule of parliament that MPs must declare all sources of income and directorships to the register of interests."
But no worries:
âTurnbull revealed the Govt had cleared Billson of breaching ministerial standards and the lobbying code of conduct.â
FFS. Something as egregious as this and the Tories think itâs OK.
Makes you wonder what else they are getting away with.
Billson was cleared of lobbying fellow MPs while in office, but he still faces charges of contempt of Parliament. Not sure how that works, but if it is limited to the Reps, he probably has the numbers. There is some sort of rule that an MP has to sit out 18 months before taking up a position related to his job after leaving Parliament. But as for taking $75k while a Minister?
Wow. This new energy policy has no modelling. It just another âlet the industry do what it wantsâ thing. Itâs absolutely dumb. So the market determines the best route to reductions but thereâs a catch in there that you have to buy coal. Not only does this make emission reductions harder (and meeting obligations) it also pushes up prices artificially because coal and gas require fuels whereas renewables are the cheap option with no marginal running cost. So it actually does the opposite of what itâs supposed to do on both emissions and prices.
This is simply mind bogglingly insane policy and if it doesnât get exposed through the media then this country is seriously stuffed.
