The Greens’ candidate for the federal seat of Richmond, Dawn Walker, has called on her Labor rival, sitting MP Justine Elliott, to back their bill to ban controversial political donations from mining companies.
The call comes as a report revealed this week that fossil-fuel companies receive around $2,000 in subsidies for every dollar donated by the mining sector to political parties.
But Labor is mute on the issue, despite questions this morning by Echonetdaily.
Ms Walker urged Mrs Elliot to join her in signing the 350.org ‘Pollution Free Politics’ pledge and to support the Donations Reform Bill
She said the Greens did not accept donations from fossil fuel companies ‘and in order to stop the corrupting influence of political donations that the Liberal, National and Labor parties receive from the fossil fuel sector we simply need to ban these donations’.
‘The fossil fuel sector receives multi-million dollar subsidises annually from government,’ she said.
‘Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals have collectively taken $3.7 million from fossil fuel companies in the past three years.
‘Effectively, for every dollar donated by the fossil fuel sector to political parties these companies receive about $2,000 in subsidies for their industry.
‘The Richmond electorate would like the confidence that candidates are not using money from fossil fuel companies to fund their campaigns,’ Ms Walker said, citing a report on the donations.
Mrs Elliot was asked about the call to ban political donations, but her spokesman totally ignored the issue.
Instead, the MP’s spokesman said Labor was’ committed to reach net zero emissions by 2050, evidence of our support for a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy’.
In her response to Echonetdaily, she said ‘We know that this needs to be done with consideration of what is important to, and needed by, communities, industries, workers and the environment.
‘Labor recognises that conventional fuels will be part of our energy mix in the future, but they will have less of a share because of the economics of both standard and renewable energy,’ the statement said.
‘The market is showing the transition from fossil fuels is already happening and we want to encourage and support this transition through our commitment to 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030.’
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