Scott franklin

[Peter Lyndon-James @PeterPerthWA]

MORE THAN A BILLION DOLLARS, AND NOBODY HAS TO SAY WHERE IT WENT

I've spent months documenting that Australia's political money laws never require anyone to disclose where a dollar was spent. I thought that was an electoral law problem. It isn't. It's the whole system.

Put the discretionary streams in one column.

Major and Local Community Infrastructure, $560.9 million, one-off. Invitation-only. Forty-five divisions got nothing. 73.2 per cent went to divisions notionally held by Labor.

Criteria never published.

Supporting Multicultural Communities, $171.3 million over three years. The department's own page says closed non-competitive and one-off ad hoc rounds.

How you get invited is not published.

The Journalism Assistance Fund, $67.6 million over three years at $13,000 per full-time-equivalent journalist a year. Plus $33 million to AAP, a mandated minimum $3 million a year of advertising carved out for regional newspapers, and $204.1 million of campaign advertising in 2024-25 alone.

The News Bargaining Incentive.

Two government members told Parliament it should deliver $225 to $275 million a year to news businesses. Treasury has published no costing of its own.

The Department of Finance, $55.8 million on the electoral register over its history, including $12.7 million to the major parties' research centres, filed as Other Receipt rather than public funding.

And from January, election funding rises to $5 per formal first preference vote, indexed every six months, alongside a new quarterly payment to registered parties with a sitting member, and to independents.

My finding on the electoral register was that you can see who receives and never who pays out. This is the same gap at the other end of the pipe. On the grants register the payments are itemised. You can see every dollar and every recipient. What's invisible is the decision. Who was asked. Who approved it. On what basis.

So there are three points in one circuit.

Money coming in, where six dollars in ten arrive with no payer named. Money going out, where no section of the Act requires itemisation. And government money going out, where the payment is published but the selection is secret.

At no point in the whole circuit can you trace a decision back to a person.

Now the part where I have to be fair, because I had this wrong when I first drafted it. Recipients are not unaccountable. The journalism fund requires expenditure reports and can demand an audit. The payments scheme carries penalties for failing to report. What none of it requires is disclosure to you. Treasury looked at this in November 2022 and decided against going further, saying it did not consider there was a persuasive case for regulating how news businesses use funding. That is their reasoning to defend, not a gap they missed.

The rest of the steelman holds too.

Every one of these streams has a defensible purpose. Communities need infrastructure. Journalism is collapsing. Parties need resourcing or they end up owned by donors. None of this requires anyone to have acted badly.

That's what unsettles me. Nobody had to.

Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.

What's your thoughts…?

Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺

Sources:
Are in the comments below

[Timjbo 🇦🇺 @TimjboAU]

The PM has been yes, but maybe.

The Australian people are not stupid; they can work out a phony. They can work out that they are being treated to weasel words.

Albo should have tightened his language over the last couple of years to sound as though he's fair dinkum.
John Howard

[JILL @1Swinging_Voter]

OUCH!!
#CANBERRA
Not sure that little Miss ABC and Glenday were ready for that.
Albanese and his ABC have done a lot of damage to #AUSPOL #PERTHNEWS #SYDNEY
GOOD ON THAT LADY.
(Hope more people do just what she did and call them out on live TV)

[Rita Panahi @RitaPanahi]

This is what a real leader looks like

[Scott franklin @heyscottyboy]

@KateEmerson88 Not racist. Just a fact

[Scott franklin @heyscottyboy]

@AlboMP I suppose you are gonna tell us that “ you didn’t hold the gun”. Spineless. You are not a leader.

[Higgins🇦🇺 @higgins1112]

@AlboMP Fuck you. Tell Sunrise how it isn't your fault, cunt.

[Lozzy B 🇦🇺𝕏 @TruthFairy131]

The Australian Labor Government are 💯 responsible for today’s terrorist attack.

We have been screaming out that this was going to happen any day.

Labor imported known terrorists into our country & released known convicted terrorists into our communities instead of deporting them.

Muslims told us that they planned jihad in Australia over & over & Labor looked the other way.

Labor even funded known terrorists.

The Labor Government has so much blood on their hands & they need to be removed.

We cannot coexist with this evil violent ideology & we can not live under this evil incompetent Government 😡

[GGee @22thinkinggirl]

@AlboMP When you acknowledge the State of Palestine and fail to condemn the Opera House protests on 9th October you are complicit in the disgusting antisemitism engulfing Australia. #Resign #Bondi

[Scott franklin @heyscottyboy]

@AlboMP Weak as piss. Time to take a stand. Muslims are not welcome

[Scott franklin @heyscottyboy]

This will be Albos Port Arthur moment. Will he have the spine like little Johnny. @johnhoward @AlboMP weak as piss albo

[Scott franklin @heyscottyboy]

Blood on your hands @AlboMP @SenatorWong you let them in. #bondibeach

[Scott franklin @heyscottyboy]

@9noodleninja With business cards

[Nelly C @9noodleninja]

Well this is a long "welcome to country"... #AFLWFinals

[Jaymz🤘🤘🤘 @hell4u02]

Welcome to country.... I've got business cards 😆#AFLWFinals

[Scott franklin @heyscottyboy]

@hell4u02 Hilarious

[ChessBase India @ChessbaseIndia]

Absolute Cinema by @GMHikaru🔥

Edit: @ram_abhyudaya
#chess #chessbaseindia #gukesh #hikarunakamura

[Scott franklin @heyscottyboy]

@ChessbaseIndia @GMHikaru @ram_abhyudaya @CheckmateUSAIND This should be standard for the winner to toss the king. Awesome. Love it. Never seen the sport before but would attend to see this action. #tosstheking

[Scott franklin @heyscottyboy]

@SENBreakfast @kanecornes @davidking34 @Channel7 @9NewsMelb @tommorris32 #goochgoo

[Scott franklin @heyscottyboy]

@kanecornes get the #goochgoo up early and hit the road. See you on the Gold Coast for the last 80kms.