so you reackon the libs wives like pearl necklaces do you Bigvic? ....

good thing they're all married to wan kers then

Lord mayor Robert Doyle is being offered a campaign donation of hundreds of thousands of dollars by one of his fellow councillors in return for the deputy lord mayor nomination at Town Hall elections.

Ken Ong, the council's chair of planning, recently increased his sizeable wealth by selling a major stake in a chain of childcare centres he owns with his wife for at least $9 million.

Cr Ong, a Liberal Party member like Cr Doyle, has told the lord mayor he wants to run as his deputy at elections in October.

In return for the position, Cr Ong said he was willing to offer a large campaign donation - with party members and Town Hall sources saying about $200,000 had been discussed.

"The offer is not $200,000 specifically," Cr Ong said. "I am happy to contribute a reasonable amount. It might be less or it might be even more if the campaign demands."

Asked if the offer of a donation to the campaign would be on the condition of being Cr Doyle's deputy, Cr Ong said: "Well, if I'm not the deputy lord mayor, I don't need to contribute."

At the 2012 Melbourne City Council election, Team Doyle raised almost $400,000 in donations - including $20,000 from current deputy lord mayor Susan Riley. Another Team Doyle councillor, Beverley Pinder-Mortimer, gave $30,000.

Many donations to Team Doyle came from property developers, and Cr Doyle and his team have had to absent themselves from many votes involving donors.

Monash University governance expert Ken Coghill is a former state MP and an ex-councillor at Wodonga Council. He recently wrote a report calling for major electoral reform at Melbourne City Council.

He said the spectre of such large donations gave a terrible impression of how power could be exercised in local government.

"This looks very much like an attempt to buy political power and power should rest equally with all citizens rather than people with money, or people with wealthy backers," Professor Coghill said.

He said local government in Australia should follow the lead set by Britain, which has introduced a spending limit of £740 plus six pence for each elector.

"If that formula were applied to the City of Melbourne, then all that any candidate could spend would be $17,000," he said.

macman wrote on Mar 1^st, 2016 at 7:19am:

Notice how most of the Liberal-party rightards are avoiding this thread like the plague? They just don't want to know just how thoroughly corrupt their party is.

It's not that we're avoiding it Bam. It's just that talking to leftards is like beating your head against a brick wall.