Why political donations are vital for democracy

Not that a ban on donations would be particularly effective or healthy.

There would be nothing to stop rich entities getting into politics in their own right – say a bunch of miners running a campaign against a mining tax.

At the same time, the inability of candidates to raise their own funds would centralise power further and give party organisations even more power over them.

Campaigns would become mediocre, sensitivity to community opinion less and new entrants would be virtually precluded from access to reasonable funding.

We shouldn't allow a few high profile cases of corruption or class envy to stampede us into ceding more power to a few well-placed insiders.

Democracy guarantees us all the right to participate to the best of our ability. If our ability is making money, then it would be anti-democratic to stop us from contributing that.

And it's certainly anti-democratic to take the money from all of us, by force, through the tax system. Let the pollies stand on their own two feet.