Political party secrecy - one of world's worst

Stephen Mayne in yesterdays' Sun Herald wrote about political parties and election funding and concluded after looking at returns for the last eight years that "Australia has one of the world's worst financial disclosure systems for political parties".

It's not just that there is great mystery about the balance sheets of the parties, it is also that what is disclosed on donations can be so late in the piece as to be irrelevant when the citizens make their choice at the ballot box. There should be no secrets here - see our blog last week on this subject.