Comments on: Putting families first by keeping political donations secret?!

By: Win-win for Families! Cheaper grog, while mega-donations stay secret - Andrew Bartlett

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:53:57 +0000

...] already used his deciding vote last week to stop this yawning invitation for corruption from being removed – using another curious [...

By: Steven Nowakowski

Steven Nowakowski — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:25:30 +0000

I would assume the ALP will not preference FF again in the Senate. It was a stupid move by the ALP to preference FF over the Greens. I hope they have learnt their lesson.

By: morewest

morewest — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:36:38 +0000

While I don’t discount Slim’s suggestion, having observed Fielding’s behaviour for some time I suspect that he simply misunderstood what he was voting on and didn’t realise that he was voting down the bill. He still seems to have a poor grasp of procedures.

By: Andrew Bartlett

Andrew Bartlett — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:09:24 +0000

I’d never thought of that rationale Slim.

No seriously, it hadn’t occurred to me to ascribe dubious motive – bit naive of me I guess. I just thought he was being either churlish or stupid.

The government will reintroduce the Bill and bring it to another vote again fairly quickly I imagine, so we’ll get a better idea then.

By: Slim

Slim — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:26:21 +0000

I’m guessing that Fielding is protecting parties like Family First and the donations they may or may not receive anonymously from organisations like Hill Song Church.

By: philofsydney

philofsydney — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:58:41 +0000

I’m told by a staffer friend in Canberra that before the stimulus bill went to vote, Fielding took the phone off the hook and left the office, so no one knew where his vote would go before it happened. The ALP were tearing their hair out trying to talk to him, but Elvis had left the building. Apparently this is pretty standard practice by FF.