Sam Dastyari
Labor Senator Sam Dastyari pledged to respect China's position on the South China Sea at an election campaign press conference he held with a Chinese political donor who had previously paid his legal bills.
He has also urged Australia to drop its opposition to China's air defence zone in the contested region.
The comments, reported in the Chinese media, conflict with Labor's official position on the issue which is that Australia should oppose China's stance and authorise our navy and airforce to conduct freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea.
JUDITH SLOAN
Follow the money to find paths of union influence
The topic of political donations has been in the news lately following the revelation Labor senator Sam Dastyari had accepted a payment from a company with connections to the Chinese government to cover a travel bill. It is widely accepted these sorts of companies make such payments only in return for favours and information. It’s a deal. The same link is assumed to apply to donations made by all companies to politicians and political parties — the money is handed over to reap something in return.
But here’s the strange thing. When the trade unions hand over millions of dollars to the Labor Party (and now to the Greens and selected independent candidates), the intimate link between money and reward is largely ignored by journalists and commentators. If anything, this flow of money is seen as benign, a simple reflection of the symbiotic relationship between the Labor Party and the trade union movement. (Some of us would say the Labor Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the union movement.) Nothing inappropriate or undemocratic is detected in these arrangements.
The brutal reality is union donations to Labor purchase favours in a similar way to other donations, although union gifts are generally more effective at getting the job done. And because of the scale of the donations and the lopsided nature of them — most companies will generally give money to both sides of politics, although not always in equal measure — the pay-offs are substantial even when Labor is not in office.
No one should kid themselves that the political actions demanded by the union movement as part of the quid pro quo are undertaken in the national interest. The aim is to foster narrow sectional interests; don’t forget trade union members make up only 11 per cent of the workforce.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/judith-sloan/follow-the-money-to-find-paths-of-union-influence/news-story/010a6ab20b6cf86b5fbbdebb93f3e3cd