Will We Need a Chook Raffle for NSW Liberals? by Michael Ferguson

Friday night in the 1960s, in the pub that my old man went to for the purpose of tipping down pints after a hard day’s yakka, there was usually a chook raffle. That was generally 'after' the Salvation Army, with a sweet little girl and old guy went into the pub selling a magazine called, I think, The War Cry. As a kid I was illegally in the pub, but in those days women were not allowed in the front bar, as moral protection from drunk men, who may swear.
I wondered how the sweet girl was allowed to circulate in the dangerous waters of drunks each Friday, and still exit the pub in one piece. I never wondered why I, a tender aged kid, was there. In a way, I was much like the NSW Liberal Party.
Like that, life has many mysteries, such as the NSW Liberals having to forego almost $ 600,000 in public funding because political donations equal to that amount were found by the NSW Electoral commission to be unlawful: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-liberals-forced-to-forgo-almost-600k-over-unlawful-donations-20160922-grm91d.html. How long has all of this been going on? What else is happening?

You can, if interested, read about who tried to get what and failed at the URL reference cited. All of the facts are not that important. What is important is that the Electoral Commission seems to be now doing its job in subjecting donations to scrutiny, which is excellent.

Political donations have become a way of politicians being bought and accountability needs to be restored to the system.

I look forward to the day of the end of all political donations and for campaigners to do things like restoring the institution of the chook raffle, and maybe paying for their own campaigns.