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Media Release POLITICAL DONATIONS – MOTION FOR TRANSPARENCY Fairfield Councillor Thang Ngo urged all Fairfield Councillors to support his motion calling for greater accountability of political donations, which he hopes will be put to this year’s Local Government Association Conference. "Given the recent scandals in other councils and the finger being pointed as us on more than one occasion, I urge all councillors to support my motion" said Cr Ngo. Cr Ngo’s motion calls on the Federal and State Governments to amend existing laws to compel political parties to disclose names of organisations and individuals that donate more than $500 at a political fundraising function. "Amazingly there are some fundraising functions which net more than $100,000 yet, the names of donors who attend and make extravagant purchases of auction items do not have to be disclosed" said Cr Ngo. "The irony is if they wrote a cheque for $500 and sent it as a donation or a gift and it’s not at a fundraising party, then the donors details must be declared" said Cr Ngo. "It doesn’t take an Einstein to work out that dodgy developers could use this loophole to encourage corrupt conduct, especially at council level. "The community has a right to know when council votes on a development whether that developer is a large financial supporter to individual councillors or political parties on council. The full motion and rationale can be found at www.thangngo.com. Cr Ngo urges the community to log on and register their support for this motion. "As we have seen in Rockdale, donations to politicians may lead to corrupt conduct – in the community interest, we need to fix this loophole" Cr Ngo concluded. |