This is from a bit further afield than usual.
The Australian has a story about British Tory Michael Ashcroft donating one million (Australian) dollars to the (Australian) Liberal Party which has "has prompted calls for a ban on political donations from overseas." The article goes on to say that the UK ban on such donations was introduced partly because of donations that Ashcroft made to the Conservative Party whilst he was not living in the UK during the 1990s. Martin Linton is quoted in the article.
"When our law to clean up political donations was introduced, I used to refer to the ban on foreign donors as 'the Ashcroft Clause'," said Martin Linton, a Labour MP and parliamentary private secretary in the Blair Government's Department of Constitutional Affairs, which oversees British electoral laws.
"He was not the only foreign donor who made people focus on that issue, but he was the main one. We no longer allow foreign admirers to help British political parties and, frankly, you should have a similar law in Australia."
Read the full story
Leave a comment