John Howard says there is no need to ban political donations from trade unions or corporations. Just days after the Labor senator Sam Dastyari resigned from Labor’s frontbench amid questions about donations from a wealthy Chinese businessman, Howard said the whole political class in Australia had been “panicked” about the donations issue. Australian political donations: how hard would it really be to clean up? “I am not against foreign donations, I don’t believe in banning corporate donations, I don’t believe in banning trade union donations, so therefore I’m the odd man out in this whole debate,” Howard told Sky News on Sunday. “So I am completely at odds with what Tony Abbott said, what I hear Malcolm saying, what I hear Bill Shorten saying.

Source: The Guardian September 11, 2016 01:52 UTC