Old report: fossil fuel’s political donations and Government
ACF tracking in 2020 shows huge fossil fuel political donations to influence our political parties.
Many of my posts here have noted that special interests in the fossil fuel and related industries have effectively turned many of our members of Parliament into puppets putting the interests of the industry ahead of the country’s citizens. I came across the Australian Conservation Foundation’s 12/02/2020 report, “Fossil fuel money distorting democracy” giving precise numbers showing how the fossil fuel political donations are used to distort our democracy away from the public interest, and towards their private profits. These have just been updated 01/02/2022 on-line in the report, “Fossil fuel industry donates big to major parties“.
“This data shows just how dark and opaque the financing of our politics is, with 38% of the money that funds Australia’s major parties having no identifiable source,” said the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Democracy Campaigner Jolene Elberth.
From the 2022 update
Fossil fuel money distorting democracy
Key findings
Read the complete article….
• Donations from the fossil fuel industry are on the rise. Fossil fuel donations to the major parties peaked in the 2018-19 period. Overall, the industry donated a total of $1,894,024, excluding donations to the United Australia Party.
• The extractive industries are by far the largest donors from the coal, oil and gas sector, accounting for over half of the total donations to the major parties since 2015-16.
• There is a severe lack of transparency over money flowing to politicians from donations. We found that from 2015-2019 the major parties had close to $283 million in income from undisclosed sources. In the 2018-2019 fiscal year alone, the major parties received over $100,000,000 in income from undisclosed sources. This ‘dark money’ in the system is worsened by the extremely loose regulations on associated entities. In 2018-2019, associated entities disclosed just over one third of the income they received, while around 67% of money came from undisclosed sources. This money is often then donated to political parties, further obscuring the true source of
the donation.
What are fossil fuel’s political donations getting for their money?
There can be no doubt that Scotty from Marketing is going all out to promote the fossil fuel industry and protect their interests from any harm arising from actions to bring the climate emergency under control. Whether this the direct pay-back for fossil fuel’s political donations or not, I don’t know. But he has also made it abundantly clear that he is not leading Parliament or the people in fighting the fires of the climate emergency: From the official transcript dated 20/12/2019 from the PM’s own office, Scotty made it abundantly clear to John Stanley on 2GB Radio that HE doesn’t fight fires… “But I know Australians understand… that, you know, I don’t hold a hose, mate, and I don’t sit in a control room. That’s the brave people who do that are doing that job. But I know that Australians would want me back at this time out of these fatalities. So I’ll happily come back [from his secret holiday in Hawaii] and do that.”
Sixteen year-old Greta tells us and everyone at the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos how we and our governments should actually respond to the climate emergency:
In other words, smell the smoke, see the reality, and fight the fire that is burning up our only planet so we can give our offspring a hopeful future. This is the only issue that matters. All Capt. Humbug and his troop of wooden-headed puppets are doing is rearranging the furniture in the burning house to be incinerated along with anything else we may care about. In Greta’s words, “even a small child can understand [this]”. People hope for their children’s futures. She doesn’t want your hope. She wants you to panic enough to wake up and fight the fire…. so she can have some hope for her future.
To stop continued the puppet government’s continued smothering of effective action against the emergency their members need to be removed from Parliament and be replaced by rational people who have publicly committed themselves to putting acting on the climate emergency on the top of their agenda if elected.
Vote Climate One’s Traffic Light Voting System will help you use our country’s preferential voting system in your electorate to rank candidates to elect your personally favored pro-climate candidate and avoid voting for puppets or those who might pass their preferences on to a puppet. If enough people follow this guide, we should be able to elect a new government that will give our children and grand children a foreseeable and hopeful future.
