Clive Palmer (Fairfax, Palmer United Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is in the public interest that we have proper governance of political parties. The Prime Minister took a major step in the right direction when, in his first cabinet meeting, he declared that members of the Liberal Party executive could not act as political lobbyists at the same time as they held office. A number of the Liberal Party executive resigned as a consequence of that decision. When I was a life member of the Liberal Party the funding of the Liberal Party, its application and those who funded it were of great concern to me. I was a life member of the Liberal Party and a member of its national conference. I had been a National Party official spokesman and a member of the conservative side of politics for over 40 years.

Despite all of that, in 2011 and 2012, despite the fact that I had been one of the strongest supporters of the party and one of its largest donors, it was impossible to get a copy of the accounts of the party and a veil of secrecy hung over the application and use of party funds. At that time corporate governance was non-existent in the Liberal Party. Elected members of the national executive, holding the highest offices other than that of president of the party, complained personally to me that they were denied any access to the accounts of the party, about how money was donated to the party and how it was actually spent. There was no accountability which one would normally expect to see in a body receiving funding from the public and its members.

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