Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:08 a.m. No.12925318   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5333 >>5398 >>5428 >>5614 >>5684 >>5750 >>5848 >>6013

Building the Beast System: FDA Wants GPS on Crops – Spinach Sends Email – Cow Registration Mandates

 

The FDA is considering requiring GPS coordinates of every crop harvested, and data on when it was planted/harvested/chilled/packed/shipped. Not only would this put small farms OUT of business, it effectively requires robotic automation.

 

British Columbia has mandated livestock registration for your safety “in this age of dangerous pandemics.”

 

The technocratic takeover of farming continues, and the stage is now set for the introduction of the blockchain/AI beast system.

 

Christian breaks it down in this Ice Age Farmer broadcast.

 

 

https://IceAgeFarmer.com​

 

FULL SHOW NOTES:

 

SUBSCRIBE on BitChute: https://bitchute.com/iceagefarmer​

On Lbry.tv: https://lbry.tv/@iceagefarmer

 

https://www.naturalblaze.com/2021/02/building-the-beast-system-fda-wants-gps-on-crops-spinach-sends-email-cow-registration-mandates.html

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:09 a.m. No.12925330   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5365 >>5440 >>5462 >>5573 >>5614 >>5750 >>5848 >>6013

National Guard could be stationed in DC until at least the fall: report

 

What is the point of this?

 

Department of Defense officials are considering keeping National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. through the fall, according to internal communication obtained by WTTG-TV.

 

There are currently approximately 6,000 National Guard troops patrolling Washington, D.C., following the Capitol riot on Jan 6. At one point, there were an estimated 26,000 National Guard members in D.C. to provide security for President Joe Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20.

 

An internal communication between the Department of Defense and the National Guard reportedly discusses keeping troops in the nation's capital until the fall.

 

Robert G. Salesses, who is the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security, allegedly discussed an extension of the National Guard in D.C.

 

"If it's not possible to sustain at the current level with [National Guard] personnel, we need to establish the number of [National Guard] personnel (DCNG and out-of-state) we can sustain for an extended period – at least through Fall 2021 – and understand additional options for providing [Department of Defense] support, to include use of reserve personnel, as well as active component," Salesses reportedly wrote to the Capitol Police and National Security Council in an email.

 

Currently, there are plans to keep the National Guard in Washington, D.C., until mid-March. On Monday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the cost of having the National Guard secure Washington, D.C. from Jan. 6 until March 15 will cost taxpayers $483 million — $284 million for personnel and $199 million for operations, according to Forbes.

 

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) questioned why there are still National Guard troops in Washington.

 

"We still have National Guardsmen out there, away from their families, away from their jobs, supplementing the police," Waltz told Fox News host Martha MacCallum. "And yet we can't get a briefing on what is this dire threat that requires so many people. We still don't have answers."

 

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) also questioned why there were still troops in D.C.

 

"I sit on the Intelligence Committee, but I'm aware of no specific, credible threat reporting — as distinguished from aspirational, uncoordinated bluster on the internet — that justifies this continued troop presence," Cotton wrote in a Fox News op-ed. "Thus, I believe the rest of these soldiers should also go home to their families and civilian jobs."

 

https://www.theblaze.com/news/national-guard-capitol-washington-dc-fall

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:11 a.m. No.12925343   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5378 >>5614 >>5750 >>5848 >>6013

Coronavirus Israel Live: Netanyahu Pushes for Legislation to Disclose Identities of Non-vaccinated Israelis

 

Two Israelis contract South African variant after recovery ■ venues to reopen next week in green areas ■ 75 percent of new COVID cases under 39

 

Despite an extensive vaccination campaign, coronavirus cases in Israel remain high and show little sign of decreasing. Israel is exiting its third nationwide lockdown, and has halted inbound and outbound flights. 5,351 Israelis have died so far of the virus.

 

Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip await vaccines, though it may take at least a few more months for their campaigns to reach enough members of the population. 1,577 people have died so far in the West Bank, while 533 have died in Gaza.

 

The plan to reopen schools in areas in which infection rates lowered over the weekend, originally intended to go into effect on Monday, was postponed to at least Tuesday after the coronavirus cabinet failed to approve the measure.

 

The Education Ministry expects the coronavirus cabinet to approve reopening these schools at 11:00 A.M. on Monday, after it was presented with infection rate data by town from the Health Ministry. If the measure is approved, towns and cities that are now designated as "green" or "yellow" under the traffic light plan for measuring infection rates will be able to reopen preschool through fourth grade classes on Tuesday. (Shira Kadari-Ovadia)

 

The Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has produced a 94 percent drop in symptomatic coronavirus cases, a study published Sunday by the Clalit health maintenance organization's research institute says.

 

The study analyzed 1.2 million Clalit members, including 600,000 who had received the Pfizer vaccine and 600,000 who had not. The inoculated group produced 94 percent fewer symptomatic COVID-19 cases, and 92 percent fewer cases of serious illness. (Ido Efrati)

 

The coronavirus cabinet approved advancing legislation – proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – that would allow municipalities to receive the names of residents who have not been vaccinated for government approval.

 

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/covid-vaccine-israel-coronavirus-1.9537038

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:14 a.m. No.12925380   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5614 >>5750 >>5848 >>6013

Top 10 hypocritical SCHOOL RULES during Covid

 

Although Covid is no worse than the flu, the latter of which has suddenly disappeared from existence in America, students and school faculty alike who are attending “in-person” are forced to endure all the stupidity and idiocy that comes with quarantining the healthy. There’s a reason every student and teacher in America must wear a mask to school, and it’s not about Covid safety — in fact, it has nothing to do with Covid protection at all. This is very shocking to most people, especially those who believe that our entire medical system is designed to help you.

 

You see, just like the flu shot or the Covid shot, masks spread disease rather than prevent it from spreading. How? Simple. The person wearing the mask gets sick from diseases like pneumonia, as the bacteria in the mouth releases toxins that make their way to other parts of the body, including the lungs and brain. Yes, oral bacteria can break into the bloodstream, that’s a scientific fact we already know from chronic gum disease. Still, masks are mandatory nearly everywhere, no matter the science or facts.

In America, medical stupidity reigns supreme, especially in schools, where everyone is systematically lobotomized and slowly poisoned

 

Over 6 billion bacteria from more than 700 different species live inside your mouth, many of which provoke disease, rather than fight it. Now they’re trapped by a mask that breeds it all like a balmy, cultured Petri dish. That’s just the beginning of the absurdity and hypocritical functioning going on. Let’s take an inside look at the top 10 ways you spread disease in schools, rather than prevent or fight it.

 

#1. “You MUST wear a mask!”

 

Disease-ridden, cheap, homemade Covid masks do more harm than good. More than 2 dozen oral species are linked to diseases and conditions in other parts of the body. So make that bandana-mask from any cloth you got, and make it double-layered, even though the holes in nearly every mask are much larger than the Covid virus particles (microns). It’s like throwing a basketball through a hula hoop.

 

#2. The CDC, your school, and every hospital HIGHLY recommends getting the entire series of Covid vaccines!

 

Even though the series of Covid jabs are highly experimental, have no proven results in clinical studies, and come with a laundry list of horrific side effects (more than the dreaded flu shot), including blood disorders and death (as hundreds of Americans have already died directly from the Covid vaccine series). Guess you can’t ask that healthcare worker to testify, who just passed away right after getting the deadly Covid vaccine.

 

#3. Social distancing of 6 feet is required at all times!

 

So what ever happened to herd immunity? Suddenly Covid comes and every vaccine theory to date suddenly vanishes, and every person in every school has lost their collective mind. Even after getting vaccinated, the CDC is telling everyone to continue to wear masks and social distance, all but admitting the vaccine is worthless (and harmful).

 

#4. Don’t share any classroom materials!

 

Yet at recess and P.E., everyone touches all the same balls, toys, monkey bars, swings, and all other exercise paraphernalia (then they touch their face and mask repeatedly, spreading all the germs).

 

#5. Do not dare to share any supplements at school, especially vitamin D or C!

 

No school would be complete without absolutely worthless food and beverages, including GMO everything, antibiotic and hormone-laden milk, cheese and meat, those blood-clogging canola-oil-laden fries, and HFCS-loaded sweets. But don’t you dare bring supplements to school that prevent and beat Covid, or the teachers who do will be fired on the spot for daring to share. School nurses and heads of school take heed.

 

https://patriotrising.com/top-10-hypocritical-school-rules-during-covid/

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:20 a.m. No.12925424   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>12925405

Valentine's Day

 

When Valentine's Day looms on the horizon, many people start thinking about love. Did you know that the modern Valentine's Day, although named for a martyred saint, actually has its roots in an early Pagan custom? Let's take a look at how Valentine's Day evolved from a Roman festival into the marketing behemoth that it is today.

 

Did You Know?

 

The festival of Valentine's Day may have evolved from a Roman love lottery, held around the time of the Lupercalia.

The holiday got an overhaul as Christianity took hold, and was renamed for Saint Valentine.

Around 500 c.e., Pope Gelasius decided that a lottery of saints was more pious than selecting potential love partners out of a jar.

 

February is a great time of year to be in the greeting-card or chocolate-heart industry. This month has long been associated with love and romance, going back to the days of early Rome. Back then, February was the month in which people celebrated Lupercalia, a festival honoring the birth of Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of the city. As Lupercalia evolved and time went on, it morphed into a festival honoring fertility and the coming of spring.

 

According to legend, young women would place their names in an urn. Eligible men would draw a name and the couple would pair off for the rest of the festival, and sometimes even longer. As Christianity progressed into Rome, the practice was decried as Pagan and immoral, and done away with by Pope Gelasius around 500 C.E. Recently there's been some scholarly debate about the existence of the Lupercalia lottery–and some people believe it may not have existed at all–but it's still a legend that brings to mind ancient matchmaking rituals perfect for this time of year!

A More Spiritual Celebration

 

Around the same time that the love lottery was being eliminated, Gelasius had a brilliant idea. Why not replace the lottery with something a bit more spiritual? He changed the love lottery to a lottery of the Saints; instead of pulling a pretty girl's name from the urn, young men pulled the name of a saint. The challenge for these bachelors was to try to be more saint-like in the coming year, studying and learning about the messages of their individual saint.

 

https://www.learnreligions.com/valentines-day-pagan-celebrations-2562121

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:21 a.m. No.12925430   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5508 >>5614 >>5750 >>5848 >>6013

Pentagon approves 20 more COVID-19 vaccination teams

 

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has approved the deployment of 20 more military vaccination teams that will be prepared to go out to communities around the country, putting the department on pace to deploy as many as 19,000 troops if the 100 planned teams are realized. The troop number is almost double what federal authorities initially thought would be needed.

 

Chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Friday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s latest approval brings the number of COVID-19 vaccination teams so far authorized to 25, with a total of roughly 4,700 service members. He said the teams, which largely involve active-duty forces, are being approved in a phased approach, based on the needs of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

 

So far, only one of the first five teams approved last week has actually been announced and deployed. That 222-member team from Fort Carson, Colorado, has arrived in Los Angeles, where it will help with a federally run vaccination site at California State University. The team is expected to begin providing vaccines to the public on Tuesday, but will likely do some initial vaccinations, including of team members, on Monday.

 

He added that the department expects to have more details soon on where the other four will deploy.

 

The Biden administration has said that delivering the vaccine to Americans is a top priority, raising questions about why the rollout of the teams hasn’t moved more quickly.

 

The Pentagon first received the original request from FEMA in late January, for 100 vaccination teams with a total of 10,000 troops. Kirby said only one team has been deployed so far because it is a complicated process that requires coordination with local and state authorities to identify the right locations and determine the infrastructure and support that is needed. He said it takes time to set each site up correctly.

 

“We don’t want to move too fast so that we’re overwhelming the process or the system,” Kirby told Pentagon reporters.

 

Officials have said that more vaccination sites will open around the country as more doses of vaccine become available. The military deployment comes as the nation is in a race against a virus that is spawning mutations, which may make it spread more easily and inflict deadlier disease.

 

The 20 new teams will include 10 that will have 222 members, and 10 smaller units with 139 personnel.

 

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/02/14/pentagon-approves-20-more-covid-19-vaccination-teams/

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:29 a.m. No.12925475   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5501

Government Secrecy Causes Conspiracy Theories

 

Due to the CIA’s refusal to be transparent about the exact nature of its involvement in Syria, people are left to fill in the knowledge gaps with their own speculation, writes Caitlin Johnstone.

 

The DC Circuit has ruled that the CIA is under no obligation to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests pertaining to its involvement with insurgent militias in Syria, overturning a lower court’s previous ruling in favor of a Buzzfeed News reporter seeking such documents.

 

As Sputnik‘s Morgan Artyukhina clearly outlines, this ruling comes despite the fact that mainstream news outlets have been reporting on the Central Intelligence Agency’s activities in Syria for years, and despite a US president having openly tweeted about those activities.

 

“In other words, the CIA will not be required to admit to actions it is widely reported as having done, much less divulge documents about them to the press for even greater scrutiny,” Artyukhina writes, calling to mind the Julian Assange quote “The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security.”

 

The CIA’s brazen collaboration with dangerous extremist factions seeking to topple Damascus, and its equally brazen refusal to provide the public with any information about the extent of its involvement in Syria from the earliest stages of the violence in that nation onwards, will necessarily provide fodder for conspiracy theories.

 

It is public knowledge that the CIA was involved in the Syrian war to some extent, it is public knowledge that the CIA has a well-documented history of doing extremely evil things, and it is public knowledge that the US government has long sought control over Syria. Due to the agency’s refusal to be transparent about the exact nature of its involvement in that nation, people are left to fill in the knowledge gaps with their own speculation.

 

Of course they will do this. Why wouldn’t they? Why would anyone give the lying, torturing, propagandizing, drug trafficking, coup-staging, warmongering, psychopathic Central Intelligence Agency the benefit of the doubt and assume their actions in Syria have been benevolent just because the hard facts have been hidden behind a wall of government secrecy?

 

Yet they will be expected to. Anyone with a sufficient degree of influence who comes right out and says the CIA knowingly armed violent jihadists with the goal of orchestrating regime change in Syria will be attacked as a crazy conspiracy theorist by the narrative managers of the establishment media. If their words are really disruptive to establishment narratives, there will be calls to deplatform, unemploy, and ban them from social media.

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/02/14/government-secrecy-causes-conspiracy-theories/

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:29 a.m. No.12925481   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5614 >>5750 >>5848 >>6013

Sunday Talks, Richard Grenell Discusses the New Police State in Washington DC

 

Richard “Ric” Grenell appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the new police state constructed around our nation’s capitol in Washington DC.

 

Bartiromo outlines the newly fortified security perimeter and the thousands of military troops that will be guarding Capitol Hill for an unknown amount of time. Questions are being asked about why DC needs to assemble a police state encampment. Who and what are they protecting themselves from?

 

https://youtu.be/f5eD4SaLQl0

 

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2021/02/14/sunday-talks-richard-grenell-discusses-the-new-police-state-in-washington-dc/

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:31 a.m. No.12925487   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5614 >>5750 >>5848 >>6013

NY Mag admits Fauci “hot-wired” coronavirus with gain-of-function engineering

 

After a year of denial, the mainstream media is finally coming to terms with the fact that Anthony Fauci is responsible for “hot-wiring” the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) with experimental gain-of-function technology, which ultimately turned it into a global “pandemic.”

 

Were it not for the artificial insertion of amino acids and other additives by Fauci and his team, the novel Chinese virus never would have gained the traction it did in terms of being a human-to-human contagion.

 

In its natural form, the unmodified bat coronavirus would have stayed within the animal kingdom. Instead, thanks to Fauci, it morphed into a tool that is now being used to destroy the global economy and herd the masses straight into the new world order.

 

“These gain-of-function experiments were an important part of the NIH’s approach to vaccine development, and Anthony Fauci was reluctant to stop funding them,” writes Nicholson Baker for the Intelligencer.

 

“He and Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, along with Gary Nabel, NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) director of vaccine research, published an opinion piece in the Washington Post in which they contend that the ferret flu experiments, and others like them, were ‘a risk worth taking.’”

 

Fauci and his team wrote at the time that “[i]mportant information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory.” Such research, they added, can further “help delineate the principles of virus transmission between species.”

 

Fauci told reporter that “nature is the worst bioterrorist”

 

In an interview with news reporters, Fauci once contended that “nature is the worst bioterrorist,” effectively shirking all responsibility for his involvement in weaponizing it against humanity.

 

Fauci was a key player in changing the way that NIH-funded research was conducted. Under his leadership, the focus shifted to the weaponization of nature, whether it involved anthrax, AIDS, or some other bioweapon developed by the deep state.

 

After the 9/11 attacks, Fauci dramatically increased his agency’s “anti-terror” budget from $53 million in 2001 to a whopping $1.7 billion in 2003. At that time, he set aside his efforts to develop an AIDS vaccine and shifted focus to perfecting the weaponization of brucellosis, anthrax, tularemia, and the plague.

 

“We are making this the highest priority,” Fauci said at the time. “We are really marshaling all available resources.”

 

Fauci was also concerned that it was taking far too long to develop new vaccines. His stated goal was to develop new “vaccine systems” and “vaccine platforms” that could be tailored to develop new vaccine drugs within a day.

 

“Our goal within the next 20 years is ‘bug to drug’ in 24 hours,” Fauci said. “This would specifically meet the challenge of genetically engineered bioagents.”

 

The first “Project Bioshield” contract, as it is called, was awarded by Fauci to VaxGen, a California pharmaceutical company. Fauci gave the company $878 million in taxpayer money to create new anthrax vaccines.

 

Interestingly, it has been almost exactly 20 years since Fauci made those statements, and here we are with President Donald Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” program, which fast-tracked the release of Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines at speeds never before seen.

 

When challenged by some 750 scientists in a letter protesting the direction in which he was taking the NIH, Fauci doubled down and insisted that the money needed to be spent “on biodefense.”

 

“We disagree with the notion that biodefense concerns are of ‘low public-health significance,’” he added.

 

https://www.dcclothesline.com/2021/02/14/ny-mag-admits-fauci-hot-wired-coronavirus-with-gain-of-function-engineering/

 

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:37 a.m. No.12925525   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5614 >>5750 >>5848 >>6013

WHO's COVID failure another example of a 'global institution crisis'

 

The World Health Organisation’s failure to objectively investigate the origins of COVID-19 shows there isn’t a global institution capable of exploring the emergence of pandemics, according to the US Right to Know group's Gary Ruskin.

 

An international team of World Health Organisation (WHO) scientists, working with experts in China, has been researching how the COVID-19 pandemic began.

 

However, the investigation has been criticised for kowtowing to China, in particular when it comes to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which did not open its books to the investigators.

 

Recently, the head of the World Health Organisation had to deny reports investigators dismissed the theory COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

 

In a press briefing on Friday, director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: "Some questions have been raised as to whether some hypotheses have been discarded.”

 

"Having spoken with some members of the team, I wish to confirm that all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and study.”

 

Mr Ruskin todl Sky News his organisation, the US Right to Know, has been looking into some of the investigators.

 

He said some have been pushing the idea that COVID-19 originated after the virus jumped from an " intermediary host species" to humans well before that theory was rigorously tested.

 

“We plainly do not have an international way of investigating these terrible pandemic disease outbreaks,” Mr Ruskin said.

 

“We are in the middle of an international institution crisis, and frankly, we need to do better.”

 

https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6232102394001

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:43 a.m. No.12925553   🗄️.is 🔗kun

‘It’s a no-brainer’: Experts call for quarantine sites to be moved out of cities

 

Health experts are calling on the federal government to build regional quarantine stations as the Holiday Inn hotel quarantine coronavirus cluster that sparked a five-day lockdown in Victoria continues to grow.

 

International arrivals into NSW and Queensland will double on Monday, with NSW accepting more than 3000 people a week, but Victoria has halted all arrivals.

 

Premier Daniel Andrews previously flagged wanting Victoria to accept “hundreds” of arrivals each week, but on Friday he said there needed to be a “cold, hard discussion” about whether to cut the numbers returning to Australia now the more infectious British coronavirus strain was circulating.

 

Adrian Esterman, chair of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of South Australia, said cities were not designed for quarantine and, until recently, it had taken place in more remote locations such as islands or regional sites.

 

“Typically, the people working in city quarantine hotels are poorly paid, travel home on public transport, and spread it to their families,” he said. “That’s what happened in Melbourne.”

 

He said staff in regional quarantine stations lived on-site and if there was a leak, it was confined to the station and unlikely to spread to big cities. “It’s a no-brainer.”

 

Professor Esterman said the federal government had abdicated its responsibility on quarantine, passing the buck to states and territories.

 

“It is absolutely a federal government issue,” he said.

 

Section 51 of the Australian constitution gives the Commonwealth quarantine powers, but it is not an exclusive power, meaning the states’ public health safeguards operate alongside it. While the Commonwealth could have taken over quarantine, it has not and states have not lobbied for it to.

 

While Victoria’s third lockdown was caused by more leaks from hotel quarantine, Mr Andrews has repeatedly insisted the state has the country’s strongest hotel quarantine system.

 

Professor Esterman said the Victorian hotel quarantine system was one of the best due to its strict testing regime and the ban on workers having second jobs. But he said poor ventilation continued to be an issue and this could be improved by rolling out air purifiers in every room.

 

“They would get rid of a huge amount of virus in the air,” he said.

 

Mike Toole, an epidemiologist at the Burnet Institute, said in an ideal world, every Australian city would have access to a quarantine facility like the one in Howard Springs, near Darwin.

 

“It has single-storey cabins that are joined but there are no airconditioning ducts,” he said. “They have individual airconditioning units and verandas where you can sit out and get some fresh air.

 

“It’s a 30-minute drive to the Royal Darwin hospital so it really fulfils everything you’d love to have in a quarantine facility.”

 

The site has so far taken 3781 people arriving on repatriation flights. The former labour camp is co-funded by the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory government to provide up to 850 quarantine places a fortnight. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has unveiled plans to more than double Howard Springs’ capacity, but reiterated that hotel quarantine would remain the primary mode of dealing with returning travellers.

 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/it-s-a-no-brainer-experts-call-for-quarantine-sites-to-be-moved-out-of-cities-20210213-p5726b.html

 

After the Jewish QLD Leader called for outback concentration camps now a Jewish "expert" calls for the same in Victoria

Anonymous ID: a46cdf Feb. 14, 2021, 11:44 a.m. No.12925565   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5614 >>5750 >>5848 >>6013

Hidden political donations hit record high

 

Federal political parties received $50 million in unexplained cash last year in another sign of the trend towards secretive donations.

 

The “hidden money” – revealed in new analysis that calls for tougher disclosure laws so voters can know the source of the funds – is more than three times the size of the donations claimed during the last financial year. It takes the total value of unexplained finance to about $1.2 billion over two decades.

 

The analysis, from the not-for-profit Centre for Public Integrity, is based on documents released by the Australian Electoral Commission on February 1 under a regime that allows parties to keep many donations secret.

 

Former judges and corruption investigators at the Centre for Public Integrity said the results showed the need for urgent changes including tighter benchmarks so more donors would have to reveal their payments.

 

They also called for stronger sanctions to make sure donations are revealed, noting that voters can be fined for failing to vote but there is no similar penalty for minor non-compliance with the disclosure regime.

 

“This secrecy needs to stop,” said Anthony Whealy, QC, the chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, a former NSW Supreme Court judge and a former assistant commissioner of the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption.

 

“The last election set records for money raised and money hidden. Reform is needed now so that the funding of the coming election is transparent.”

 

The new analysis comes after an earlier report from the same group found about $1.1 billion in hidden payments to political parties over the past two decades.

 

Total income for political parties was $168.1 million in the last financial year, the new report says, with $14.6 million in disclosed donations, $58.2 million in public funding, $38.9 million in other receipts and $6.8 million in loans and party transfers. This left $49.6 million unexplained.

 

The centre concludes that both major parties leave a big share of their finance hidden, with the source of 39.2 per cent of Coalition funding and 27.7 per cent of Labor funding unexplained over two decades.

 

The hidden money has also surged during election years, reaching a peak in the year to June 2019.

 

“The source of over $114 million in party income was hidden from public view, meaning that voters were unaware of who funded the 2019 federal election campaign,” the report says.

 

The Centre for Public Integrity board includes former federal court judge and Queensland corruption commissioner Tony Fitzgerald; former Victorian Court of Appeal judge Stephen Charles; NSW barrister and corruption inquiry counsel Geoffrey Watson; and University of Melbourne professor Joo-Cheong Tham.

 

While Labor and the Greens have backed stricter laws, the government has defended a regime that only requires donors and parties to disclose payments over $14,300. Party officials note that this should include any aggregation, such as multiple payments to various party branches.

 

Significant funding has come from party investments, such as the Cormack Foundation, which generally supports the Liberals, and the Labor Party’s John Curtin House.

 

Labor wants the disclosure threshold cut to $1000 and donations reported to the AEC within seven days, while the Greens want the same threshold and a ban on donations from mining, banking and other industries.

 

“Most states have a disclosure threshold of $1000,” Mr Whealy said. “The Commonwealth’s disclosure threshold of $14,300 is out of line.”

 

The Centre for Public Integrity said the Australian Electoral Commission needed the power to apply administrative penalties for “minor non-compliance” so donors and parties made sure they revealed payments accurately and on time.

 

The centre wants law reform to broaden the definition of “donation” to include income from party fundraisers, corporate sponsorship of business forums, as well as membership fees over $2000 per year.

 

It also wants real-time disclosure of donations rather than the current system, which discloses figures in February for payments made in the previous financial year.

 

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/hidden-political-donations-hit-record-high-20210214-p572c8.html