"Unions should stay out of politics"

is something we have all heard. "Big business should not be allowed to donate to political parties" is another thing we have all heard.

It will therefore be interesting to see how the present state government plans to deal with their proposed legislation to prevent donations to political parties. Will it work? They are planning some "tough penalties" for anyone who breaks their proposed rules...$50,000 or up to ten years in prison.

Labor, the party proposing this legislation, gets vast sums of money from the union movement. They get it even now when union membership has declined dramatically. Union membership in this country is now around 12.5% of the workforce, down from 14% just four years ago. Of course once a Labor government is in power they recoup that money for things like "training programs" and "occupational health and safety inspections". 

Big business is no better. They will support whatever they deem necessary to support in order to get what they want. Planning permissions can hinge on making sure the right politician's palm is greased. 

Banning political donations sounds like a good thing for these reasons but will it work?  My very first thought was "but what will stop the union movement campaigning?" Unions campaign now. They used funds in the last state election to claim that the present government would "fix the ramping crisis at the hospitals" in a big way. I remember seeing claim after claim come in to our letter box. (You cannot bar political advertising from your letter box.) The sort of campaigning they were doing costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The money had to be coming from somewhere.

From memory there was just one in the entire campaign from what we would call "big business". It was a rather thoughtful one outlining policies, not people. If people read it then it might have been useful.

In the last couple of days we have had the head of the CFMEU saying that his members will sabotage the work they are doing, some of it major, for football facilities in this state unless someone is sacked.  The man in question was once on the tribunal which fined the CFMEU hundreds of thousands of dollars for wrong doing. All this union boss is doing is using his position to get back at a man who was doing his job. My guess, although I would like to believe I am wrong, is that the union boss will win. It will be wrong if he does but it will show that the union has power. It is still, despite declining union membership, a powerful union.

I can imagine that the CFMEU will still manage to find ways of donating money to those they want in power. It may not be obvious. It may not be direct. It will still happen. Other unions will do the same thing. Labor governments will donate to them in return. Big business will think about this and find some other way of shoring up support. Nothing much will change.

It would be nice if it stopped the flow into the letter box - but I doubt it will.