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Newcastle Greens
24 March 2011
Sutton calls for show and tell on Newcastle campaign donations
The Greens candidate for Newcastle, John Sutton, today called on other Newcastle candidates to publicly disclose donations made to their election campaigns so voters could see who was funding their campaigns before they vote.
“Many candidates hide behind the minimum legal requirements for disclosing donations, so that voters don’t know who has funded their campaigns until well after election day,” Mr Sutton said.
“In an era where candidates are able to post this information on websites almost immediately, this is unacceptable,” he said.
“The Greens support continuous disclosure of election campaign donations, and we make this information available as soon as practicable on the relevant websites,” he said.
Donations made to the local Greens campaigns for Newcastle and Wallsend can be found on the Newcastle Greens website (at: http://www.newcastlegreens.
“Continuous disclosure should be a legal requirement, and should be facilitated by the NSW State Electoral Office,” Mr Sutton said.
“In the absence of such a system, Newcastle candidates should do this voluntarily.
“This is particularly important for the main independent candidate, John Tate, who has been subject to adverse findings in Newcastle council code of conduct proceedings in relation to his handling of political donations,” Mr Sutton said.
Mr Sutton said that an article by prominent journalists Wendy Bacon and Nicole Gooch today in New Matilda (http://newmatilda.com/2011/
