That's why we need your support for our third party campaign

Dear ,

The ALP has rorted the electoral system so that their union affiliates have a war chest of $15 million which they are already spending to help Labor win the next election.

The media appear to have just caught up to this (or maybe they were biding their time to be strategic) and you can read a description of how it works in  The Australian’s Chooks column last Friday.

If you don't have a subscription you can read the details from The Australian by clicking on the image above. But the article misses the real genius, which isn’t the capping of donations, it is the capping of expenditure per electorate.

Newsflash: There are now 16 Labor-aligned unions (excluding the CFMEU which is in administration) registered, not the 15 at the time the article was written, and it's likely to only get worse. Plus 3 left-aligned NGOs, including GetUp. There are 4 industry groups, that history says will make little impact, and 5 right-leaning NGOs (of which we are one) most of which are single issue or special interest.

A political party can spend $95,964.09 in each electorate in the state, and a candidate $60,499.10 – a total maximum spend of $156,463.19 per electorate for the party and their endorsed candidate combined. A “registered third party” can spend $90,748.65 a seat, and is limited to a maximum spend of $1,043,088 across the state. That is the equivalent of spending the maximum in 12 seats.

Where the (evil) genius is in this arrangement is that there are probably no more than 20 seats that “matter” in this election – these are the seats that would give the LNP a workable majority if they changed hands.

(As an aside that requires an 8.3% swing since last election, or 55.1% of the two-party preferred vote).

If the 16 unions each tackled the same 12 seats the spend per seat could be something like this (ignoring minor parties, industry associations and the right-aligned NGOs):

LNP: $156, 463.19
ALP: $156,463.19
Greens: $156,463.19
16 Unions: $1,451,978.40
3 Left-aligned NGOs: $272,245.95

Total Potential Left Spend: $2,037,150.73
Total Potential Right Spend: $156,463.19

So Labor has the power to outspend the LNP 13 times over.

That’s one reason why we are registered as a third party and will campaign in this election – to do our bit to even-up the odds.

We plan to run a campaign that will move votes in specific seats as well as a media and social media campaign. This will be a campaign against the ALP and the way they have vandalised our state with bad policies that have made housing, electricity and the essentials of life expensive, and where wealth has been transferred to favoured groups rather than being for the benefit of all..

But we are going to need your help. If you can give us $100 that would be great, but we are in urgent need of donations of $5,000 and $10,000.

To put that in perspective, $6,000 is the approximate cost of one DLX letterbox drop in one marginal electorate. If you could fund one or more of those it would be great. (I’m working backwards. Once I have the flyers funded I’ll start looking at social media, television and radio, and I will let you know the cost of them).

You can gift to the campaign by clicking here.

And there’s more (as they say in the classics). We have a substantial contributor who will match what we raise, so you’ll get a lot of leverage with your donation, but believe me, we’re going to need it.

There’s also a catch…if you are a property developer as defined in Labor's electoral laws, you can’t donate for election expenditure, but there is a whole range of things we do which aren’t classified as election expenditure.

We have four studies we are funding for earned media, and to set the policy agenda after the election. One of them should really interest anyone in the residential development field, because it deals with the devastating effect on housing supply of loading new developments up with the cost of external infrastructure which is used by existing, as well as new, residents.

Wages are also not defined as electoral expenditure, nor is work promoting policies, even if they might have the effect of changing votes. So there are plenty of areas where you can make a difference.

Of course you don’t have to be a property developer to fund any of these things either.

To donate to specific projects separate from election expenditure, email me on graham.young@aip.asn.au or call me on 0411 104 801.

I know all the pundits are saying this election is a lay down misere, but they are wrong. You might remember I was the only commentator to predict Annastacia Palaszczuk would win the 2015 election, and I can tell you that, just because everyone is saying it, it doesn't make it right.

With the work Labor is putting in it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that they could either snatch victory from the jaws of defeat or force a result where the LNP is competing with them to woo the cross bench to form a minority government.

So please, either donate directly from our site (click here) or email or call me on 0411 104 801.

You should also be aware that donations of $1,000 or over must be declared if they are for election purposes, although in another twist to favour the unions, there is no limit on how much you can donate to third parties. Donations for wages, policy papers and policy promotion do not have to be declared.

I hope you can support our effort. Every election is crucial, but I can’t see how the state can withstand another 4 years of this mob throwing favours to their union mates and borrowing against future taxes to bribe voters to keep voting them back into office.

Regards,

GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR