How Australia's political parties should be funded - and how that information should be divulged - have been hotly debated for years. But we are at last approaching the end-game, as the amounts of cash pumping through the political arteries rise rapidly.
The Australian Electoral Commission revealed this week that the parties raised and spent a record $215million in the past financial year. Submissions to a green paper for discussion on the issue close on February 23, and a bill is before federal parliament.
Asia's controversial casino king Stanley Ho, aged 87, has emerged as the unlikely catalyst in ensuring the key issues are resolved, as he pressed more than $1.6million on federal and NSW Labor branches, although much of it was returned.
Ho, rated by Forbes magazine as the 113th richest man in the world, with about $12billion, lives in Hong Kong. But he has made almost all of his money to the west across the Pearl River delta, in Macau, where he owns 17 casinos, besides the jetfoil company that transports most people to the gambling haven, operated by Shun Tak, Ho's holding company.
He has been married four times and has 17 children. He was a cousin of kung fu star Bruce Lee. He has a high social profile, having been a ballroom dancer and a tennis player well into his 80s, and remains prominent at the biggest Hong Kong charity balls.
He has four honorary doctorates, and endowed through a $5.6million donation to Pembroke College, Oxford, England, a chair for the Stanley Ho University Lecturer in Chinese History.
His son Lawrence is the chief executive of Melco Crown Entertainment, another Macau casino operator, of which James Packer is co-chairman. His daughter Pansy is a director of STDM, his core casino operating business, and is half-owner of MGM Grand Macau.
His businesses account for about one-third of Macau's gross domestic product.
Ho owns property in Australia and, like many other Asian billionaires, enjoys visiting here, where he can relax with less likelihood of being recognised or bothered.
But his preoccupation in Australia has for decades been to gain a slice of the rewarding gambling action; now soaring with the succession of government-funded stimulus packages.
In this, he has been constantly thwarted -- but he has persisted, nevertheless, in seeking to charm Australian politicians through extravagant political donations, which he appears to view as investments.
Ho has been welcomed as an investor in gaming in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, which is visited by streams of Chinese tourists who gaze nostalgically at old-style communist sites by day and carouse in the casino -- banned in mainland China -- by night.
But he has otherwise largely been frustrated in his attempts to grow his business internationally, although he has been a part-owner of casinos in Hobart, Launceston and Darwin.
Singapore and Canada, as well as Australia, have blocked casino investment proposals, chiefly because of allegations that he has links with Asian organised crime, even being associated with triads in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police report. Veteran regional analyst Bertil Lintner wrote in the Far Eastern Economic Review: "It would be almost impossible to run a gambling enterprise in a place like Macau without some kind of understanding with the triads".
Apparently because of such concerns, he was left out of consideration for a role in the first casino in Sydney, Tabcorp's Star City, which opened in temporary facilities in 1995 and in its permanent home two years later.
As discussion began about issuing a second casino licence -- in the end, the NSW government cemented Tabcorp's monopoly -- Ho sent fresh bursts of good wishes to the Labor party.
During the 2007-2008 financial year a Gold Coast-based company Ho controls, Hungtat Worldwide, donated $600,000 via the NSW branch, with which he appears to have been most familiar. His fourth wife, Angela Leong, sent $499,980 to the federal party.
He personally declared a $200,000 donation to the NSW party, although the branch reported it received $400,000. Anthony Chan, a director of Ho's Shun Tak, gave $100,000 to the NSW branch in two instalments.
What might have been Ho's motivation?
Almost certainly, it was not ideological, since Ho has not often indicated any political commitment, beyond a general leaning towards the Chinese Communist Party, and support for its insistence on a slow pace for any democratisation in Hong Kong or Macau.
He appeared to have lost his former local political clout when in 2001 the Macau gaming industry, which he had monopolised for 40 years, was thrown open to the big names from Las Vegas. But the market soared, and he retained more than half. Last year the government suddenly shut the door on newcomers, and Ho's stakes soared further.
And he can provide material assistance for the communist party and its senior officials without any requirement for disclosure; more likely the opposite, an expectation that he will be discreet.
Unusually, the NSW party returned the Hungtat donation within days because, said general secretary Matt Thistlethwaite, it was not needed. But the branch retained the rest of the money that came from Ho sources.
The federal party, however, sent back the money given by Ho's wife. Assistant secretary Nick Martin said such decisions were made "on a case by case basis. We look at them, and if there's a donation we don't believe we should accept, then we return it".
National secretary Nick Bitar said the rejection followed "a due diligence assessment". The state and federal branches operate under separate constitutions. They operate their own budgets, although Victoria operates under the federal scheme.
But especially as national elections approach, funding tends to flow upwards from the states to the centre. So at least some Ho-derived money may have found its way to Canberra despite its due diligence.
Martin said the federal branch backed the reform proposals led by Special Minister of State Senator John Faulkner, both those before parliament -- currently blocked in the Senate by the opposition -- and in the new green paper, including restricting donations to Australian citizens only.
Such a limit would occasionally hit the Liberals. In September 2004, shortly before that year's federal election, Briton Lord Michael Ashcroft gave the Liberal Party $1million. Although donors are not required to provide explanations, his donation was more likely than Ho's to have been ideologically based. He is deputy chairman of Britain's Conservative Party.
But the US already bans all donations from foreigners, and such a ban in Australia would bar the money from Hos and Ashcrofts alike.
The options being canvassed in the green paper include: enhancing disclosure, including tighter time-frames and broadening the definition of the types of donations that should be disclosed; banning or capping political donations; placing limits on campaign expenditure by political parties and other participants in the political process; examining public funding rates for participants in the political process; and further regulating the involvement of third parties -- such as the ACTU, which spent $15.8million on advertisements and the Business Council of Australia, $2.3million -- in the political process.
Faulkner wants to require disclosure of donations above $1000, not $10,900 as at present, and to remove tax deductibility. The Senate -- led by the minority parties -- has voted within the present bill to keep tax deductibility. How such elements finally emerge, are likely to be hammered out as the green paper is concluded.
The controversy over the Ho donations makes it more likely a ban on foreign donations will remain in legislation.
It would be understandable if Labor was fed up with the fallout from its relations with Ho. In 2006 he paid $48,000 to party funds in return for a lunch with then NSW premier Morris Iemma. He also launched a plan to re-develop for about 4billion yuan ($905million), with Ian Tang, a mysterious Australian-Chinese business figure, Beijing's famous Friendship Store.
Tang was a generous donor to Australian politicians, paying for visits to China including by Kevin Rudd, who spoke at the launch of the Friendship Store development. But almost three years later, no work has begun on site and it appears the deal has collapsed.
A leading expert on party funding, Brian Costar from Melbourne's Swinburne University, said: "We haven't had a big enough scandal to force through wholesale change yet" -- although the Ho affair helps.
The most practical and acceptable answer, he says, is to follow the example of the New York City Campaign Finance Board. It has a website on which it is required to post all donations over a basic threshold, at set times in the electoral cycle.
"Everyone agrees transparency is essential, and that's the easiest thing, technically, to achieve. Today, we have the least regulated system of any of the advanced democracies. It's virtually open slather." (Credit: The Australian)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Politics
Political News Media blog. Australian and international politics. Local, State, Federal. American politics. Part of the Media Man Group
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Labor at odds over billionaire's advances, by Siobhain Ryan and Imre Salusinszky - The Australian - 3rd February 2009
NSW Labor has washed its hands of one of the country's most generous political donations, from a company linked to Hong Kong gambling billionaire Stanley Ho, while accepting another $400,000 directly from the man himself.
The branch's general secretary, Matt Thistlethwaite, last night told The Australian the party had sent back a $600,000 donation - the equal largest received in 2007-08 by any political party - from Gold Coast-based company Hungtat Worldwide, which lists Dr Ho as a director.
But its decision to accept a $400,000 cheque from Dr Ho puts it at odds with federal Labor, which turned down a $500,000 donation from Dr Ho's wife, Angela Leong, in the same financial year.
Explaining why the party returned Hungtat's money within days of receiving it in September 2007, Mr Thistlethwaite said: "At the time, the party's finances were sufficient to cover our expenditure. The donation was not required, so it was returned."
It is understood senior party officials at the time were concerned about negative publicity surrounding large donations from developers and other business interests.
Details of Dr Ho's generosity were contained in the Australian Electoral Commission's annual disclosure of political financing, which reveals the extent of corporate influence on the major parties.
Dr Ho declared a $200,000 donation to NSW Labor, but the branch's official disclosure put it at double that amount.
Both sides of politics have drawn heavily on major business figures, including billionaire Melbourne cardboard tycoon Richard Pratt, who donated $200,000 to the federal Liberal Party and $100,000 to federal Labor.
In other big donations, the founder of the collapsed ABC Learning centres, Eddy Groves, donated $50,000 to the Liberal Party.
Pulp mill proponent Gunns also donated $56,000 to the Liberal Party in the weeks after the Howard government gave conditional approval for the company's $2.2 billion Tasmanian pulp mill.
Dr Ho and Hungtat's donations flowed into Labor's coffers in NSW while the government of former premier Morris Iemma was considering whether to grant a second casino licence in NSW.
Eventually, the government decided to extend its exclusivity agreement with the Tabcorp-owned Star City, in a $100 million deal.
In 1986, Dr Ho was deemed a person "unsuitable" to hold a casino licence when he was part of a consortium that launched a bid for a stake in the NSW gambling market. In 2007-08, federal Labor refused a gift of nearly $500,000 from Ms Leong, Dr Ho's fourth wife.
The Australian yesterday visited a Surfers Paradise home, listed as Ms Leong's residence. The cream, double-storey home on the Gold Coast's exclusive waterfront island address of Cronin Island was shut up with blinds drawn.
ALP national secretary Karl Bitar said that, given the size of the donation, "the ALP conducted a due diligence assessment of this donation and decided that it should be returned".
Special Minister of State John Faulkner is currently championing changes to political disclosure laws that would ban foreign and anonymous donations for all political parties, whether state or federal.
The bill, now before the Senate, also brings the disclosure threshold for donations down from more than $10,000 to $1000, and shifts from annual to twice-year reporting obligations.
The Opposition has accused the ALP national secretariat of circumventing the Government's political disclosure standards by accepting NSW Labor money in the same year the branch received Dr Ho's donation.
Opposition spokesman on matters of state Michael Ronaldson said it was gross hypocrisy of federal Labor to take a public stand against foreign donations while accepting $925,000 from a state branch that drew on offshore contributors.
"It's almost a backdoor way of getting donations into the federal campaign," he said.
Dr Ho, who has featured in the Forbes list of the 100 richest people in the world, has high-placed contacts after four decades in the Macau gambling business.
His son Lawrence is a co-owner with James Packer of the giant Crown Macau casino.
At a Labor Party fundraiser in 2006, Dr Ho successfully bid $48,000 for lunch with Mr Iemma -- but did not bother to collect hisprize.
In 2006, Kevin Rudd spoke at a ceremony in Beijing to mark a $1.3billion retail redevelopment by Dr Ho and business partner Ian Tang or Tang Yui. Mr Tang, who has helped finance some of Mr Rudd's past China trips, is a director in Sydney-based Aust-China Information Technology.
The company boasts the same address as a Sydney-based donor called Aust-China Pty Ltd (Beijing), which declared a $50,000 gift to the ALP's NSW branch in 2007-08.
Dr Ho is a company director of Hungtat Worldwide, a Queensland-based company that manages the Palm Meadows Golf Course on the Gold Coast and owns a massive parcel of neighbouring land.
It has been the target of lobbying in recent weeks by senior Queensland racing officials who met Dr Ho in Hong Kong to present the businessman with a joint-venture proposal to develop a new supertrack on the Palm Meadows land.
Anthony Chan, who lists the same Hong Kong address as Dr Ho, added a further $100,000 to NSW Labor's coffers last financial year, his donor declaration shows.
The state branch has also attracted a $261,000 windfall from prolific donor Hong Kong Kingson Investment, which lists a Kowloon address.
The amount was the biggest of its 2007-08 donations to Australian political parties, which totalled $761,000. (Credit: The Australian)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Politics
The branch's general secretary, Matt Thistlethwaite, last night told The Australian the party had sent back a $600,000 donation - the equal largest received in 2007-08 by any political party - from Gold Coast-based company Hungtat Worldwide, which lists Dr Ho as a director.
But its decision to accept a $400,000 cheque from Dr Ho puts it at odds with federal Labor, which turned down a $500,000 donation from Dr Ho's wife, Angela Leong, in the same financial year.
Explaining why the party returned Hungtat's money within days of receiving it in September 2007, Mr Thistlethwaite said: "At the time, the party's finances were sufficient to cover our expenditure. The donation was not required, so it was returned."
It is understood senior party officials at the time were concerned about negative publicity surrounding large donations from developers and other business interests.
Details of Dr Ho's generosity were contained in the Australian Electoral Commission's annual disclosure of political financing, which reveals the extent of corporate influence on the major parties.
Dr Ho declared a $200,000 donation to NSW Labor, but the branch's official disclosure put it at double that amount.
Both sides of politics have drawn heavily on major business figures, including billionaire Melbourne cardboard tycoon Richard Pratt, who donated $200,000 to the federal Liberal Party and $100,000 to federal Labor.
In other big donations, the founder of the collapsed ABC Learning centres, Eddy Groves, donated $50,000 to the Liberal Party.
Pulp mill proponent Gunns also donated $56,000 to the Liberal Party in the weeks after the Howard government gave conditional approval for the company's $2.2 billion Tasmanian pulp mill.
Dr Ho and Hungtat's donations flowed into Labor's coffers in NSW while the government of former premier Morris Iemma was considering whether to grant a second casino licence in NSW.
Eventually, the government decided to extend its exclusivity agreement with the Tabcorp-owned Star City, in a $100 million deal.
In 1986, Dr Ho was deemed a person "unsuitable" to hold a casino licence when he was part of a consortium that launched a bid for a stake in the NSW gambling market. In 2007-08, federal Labor refused a gift of nearly $500,000 from Ms Leong, Dr Ho's fourth wife.
The Australian yesterday visited a Surfers Paradise home, listed as Ms Leong's residence. The cream, double-storey home on the Gold Coast's exclusive waterfront island address of Cronin Island was shut up with blinds drawn.
ALP national secretary Karl Bitar said that, given the size of the donation, "the ALP conducted a due diligence assessment of this donation and decided that it should be returned".
Special Minister of State John Faulkner is currently championing changes to political disclosure laws that would ban foreign and anonymous donations for all political parties, whether state or federal.
The bill, now before the Senate, also brings the disclosure threshold for donations down from more than $10,000 to $1000, and shifts from annual to twice-year reporting obligations.
The Opposition has accused the ALP national secretariat of circumventing the Government's political disclosure standards by accepting NSW Labor money in the same year the branch received Dr Ho's donation.
Opposition spokesman on matters of state Michael Ronaldson said it was gross hypocrisy of federal Labor to take a public stand against foreign donations while accepting $925,000 from a state branch that drew on offshore contributors.
"It's almost a backdoor way of getting donations into the federal campaign," he said.
Dr Ho, who has featured in the Forbes list of the 100 richest people in the world, has high-placed contacts after four decades in the Macau gambling business.
His son Lawrence is a co-owner with James Packer of the giant Crown Macau casino.
At a Labor Party fundraiser in 2006, Dr Ho successfully bid $48,000 for lunch with Mr Iemma -- but did not bother to collect hisprize.
In 2006, Kevin Rudd spoke at a ceremony in Beijing to mark a $1.3billion retail redevelopment by Dr Ho and business partner Ian Tang or Tang Yui. Mr Tang, who has helped finance some of Mr Rudd's past China trips, is a director in Sydney-based Aust-China Information Technology.
The company boasts the same address as a Sydney-based donor called Aust-China Pty Ltd (Beijing), which declared a $50,000 gift to the ALP's NSW branch in 2007-08.
Dr Ho is a company director of Hungtat Worldwide, a Queensland-based company that manages the Palm Meadows Golf Course on the Gold Coast and owns a massive parcel of neighbouring land.
It has been the target of lobbying in recent weeks by senior Queensland racing officials who met Dr Ho in Hong Kong to present the businessman with a joint-venture proposal to develop a new supertrack on the Palm Meadows land.
Anthony Chan, who lists the same Hong Kong address as Dr Ho, added a further $100,000 to NSW Labor's coffers last financial year, his donor declaration shows.
The state branch has also attracted a $261,000 windfall from prolific donor Hong Kong Kingson Investment, which lists a Kowloon address.
The amount was the biggest of its 2007-08 donations to Australian political parties, which totalled $761,000. (Credit: The Australian)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Politics
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Hey, big spender: the gambling tycoon who's betting on Labor, by Alexandra Smith, Stephanie Peatling and Hamish McDonald - The Sydney Morning Herald
3rd February 2009
The Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho and his business partners donated more than $900,000 to the Labor Party in the lead-up to the last federal election, even though Kevin Rudd went to the poll with a policy to ban overseas donations.
Dr Ho made a personal donation of $200,000 to NSW Labor while Hungtat Worldwide on the Gold Coast, of which he is a director, gave $600,000. But the party returned $499,980 that Dr Ho's wife, Angela Leong, had donated.
Anthony Chan, who lists the same Hong Kong address as Dr Ho, tipped another $100,000 into NSW Labor coffers, and Hong Kong Kingson Investment gave more than $760,000 to the Labor, Liberal and National parties.
The Australian Electoral Commission's annual returns, published yesterday, show Hungtat Worldwide was the equal largest donor in 2007-08, sharing the top spot with Josephine Armstrong, of Perth, who gave $600,000 to the WA Liberals.
Between 2000 and 2006, Dr Ho donated $109,000 to NSW Labor, but as gambling revenue fell in Macau the billionaire diversified his interests. He now has extensive tourism and real estate interests in Australia as well as an indirect link to the budget airline Viva Macau, which began flying from Sydney in 2007.
Dr Ho is involved in a $1.3 billion redevelopment of Beijing's prime Friendship Store site in partnership with the Prime Minister's Chinese-Australian friend Ian Tang.
The Rudd Government is trying to ban overseas donations and lower the disclosure threshold from $10,900 to $1000, but the changes have been delayed by the Opposition, which argues there is no need for them.
The Labor Party's national secretary, Karl Bitar, said the party supported a "more transparent system of electoral funding and disclosure", but he did not comment on accepting overseas donations, instead pointing out that the party returned the donation from Dr Ho's wife.
"Given the size of the donation, the ALP conducted a due diligence assessment of this donation and decided that it should be returned," Mr Bitar said in a statement.
Mr Rudd refused to answer questions about the return of Ms Leong's donation. "All such questions should be directed to the national secretary of the Australian Labor Party," he said.
The funding disclosures also reveal that in the second half of 2007, unions spent $36 million trying to get rid of the Howard government. Unions donated $9.2 million to Labor and spent an additional $26.8 million on political campaigns.
Citigroup, ANZ and Deutsche banks donated more than $200,000 to the major parties and the property developers Leighton Holdings, Westfield and Walker Corporation gave generously. (Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Politics
The Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho and his business partners donated more than $900,000 to the Labor Party in the lead-up to the last federal election, even though Kevin Rudd went to the poll with a policy to ban overseas donations.
Dr Ho made a personal donation of $200,000 to NSW Labor while Hungtat Worldwide on the Gold Coast, of which he is a director, gave $600,000. But the party returned $499,980 that Dr Ho's wife, Angela Leong, had donated.
Anthony Chan, who lists the same Hong Kong address as Dr Ho, tipped another $100,000 into NSW Labor coffers, and Hong Kong Kingson Investment gave more than $760,000 to the Labor, Liberal and National parties.
The Australian Electoral Commission's annual returns, published yesterday, show Hungtat Worldwide was the equal largest donor in 2007-08, sharing the top spot with Josephine Armstrong, of Perth, who gave $600,000 to the WA Liberals.
Between 2000 and 2006, Dr Ho donated $109,000 to NSW Labor, but as gambling revenue fell in Macau the billionaire diversified his interests. He now has extensive tourism and real estate interests in Australia as well as an indirect link to the budget airline Viva Macau, which began flying from Sydney in 2007.
Dr Ho is involved in a $1.3 billion redevelopment of Beijing's prime Friendship Store site in partnership with the Prime Minister's Chinese-Australian friend Ian Tang.
The Rudd Government is trying to ban overseas donations and lower the disclosure threshold from $10,900 to $1000, but the changes have been delayed by the Opposition, which argues there is no need for them.
The Labor Party's national secretary, Karl Bitar, said the party supported a "more transparent system of electoral funding and disclosure", but he did not comment on accepting overseas donations, instead pointing out that the party returned the donation from Dr Ho's wife.
"Given the size of the donation, the ALP conducted a due diligence assessment of this donation and decided that it should be returned," Mr Bitar said in a statement.
Mr Rudd refused to answer questions about the return of Ms Leong's donation. "All such questions should be directed to the national secretary of the Australian Labor Party," he said.
The funding disclosures also reveal that in the second half of 2007, unions spent $36 million trying to get rid of the Howard government. Unions donated $9.2 million to Labor and spent an additional $26.8 million on political campaigns.
Citigroup, ANZ and Deutsche banks donated more than $200,000 to the major parties and the property developers Leighton Holdings, Westfield and Walker Corporation gave generously. (Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Politics
U.S. States Consider Gambling for More Revenues
With the economy worsening, gambling taxes might help plug the gaps
February 2, 2009 (InfoPowa News) -- The Associated Press recently ran an interesting story reportoing that as many as 14 U.S. states may be considering an expansion in gambling licenses to help plug widening gaps in state budgets.
It's a possibly easier out for state administrations faced with the choice of raising taxes at the worse possible time or cutting services and risk antagonizing hard-pressed voters.
"Who wouldn't be interested if you're a politician who needs to fund programs?" Bo Bernhard, director of research at the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas -- a government-funded program told AP.
"While gambling has not been immune from the recession, it has held up relatively well compared with states' other revenue streams, such as income and sales taxes. This helps explain why past industry growth spurts have been preceded by economic downturns," the news agency noted, giving as an example Rhode Island, which opened America's first racetrack casino in 1992, and four states soon followed.
More recently, states faced with sagging revenues during the 2001 recession joined multi-state lotteries such as Powerball and gave more leeway to Native American tribes seeking to expand their casinos.
Analysts told Associated Press that the latest round of gambling initiatives are noteworthy in volume and ambition -- a sign that the industry aims to capitalize on states' badly bruised economies.
"From the gambling industry's point of view, this is their big chance," said Earl Grinols, an economics professor at Baylor University who specializes in gambling.
Ohio's casino advocates, including lobbyists working for Penn National Gambling Inc., are pushing a variety of large-scale development projects. In Georgia, a developer working with Dover Downs Inc. wants to transform a blighted section of downtown Atlanta with a 29-story hotel that would attract tourists with more than 5,500 video lottery terminals.
The developer pitching the $450 million Atlanta project, Dan O'Leary, estimates $300 million a year in revenues would be funneled to the state, helping to pay for a popular lottery-funded scholarship that provides in-state college tuition for students with "B" averages.
Even Hawaii, which along with Utah is one of two states without a lottery or other form of legalized gambling, may consider a change. Aides to Governor Linda Lingle, long an opponent of gambling, say she is open to discussing it as a way to close the state's growing budget gap.
Gambling in the U.S.A. is a $54 billion annual industry that employs more than 350,000 people, with most state gambling revenues coming from lotteries, racetracks and betting devices such as slot and video poker machines. Twelve states reap tax money from full-fledged casinos, and 23 others have casinos on Native American reservations, which generally do not pay taxes to states.
Opponents of gambling point to its dangers. "We've got gambling in 48 states, and you'd think if it worked, you wouldn't have budget problems or education problems," said Tom Gray, a field director for StopPredatoryGambling.org.
Many of the new gambling proposals seek to expand footholds in states that already allow limited gambling, the AP reports, pointing to the state of Kentucky, where the House speaker had proposed allowing video gambling terminals at the state's racetracks, and to New Hampshire, New York and Texas, where legislators are considering proposals this year to allow similar gambling terminals at their tracks. Casino advocates plan to push for casino-style gambling in hurricane-ravaged Galveston, Texas, as well.
Lawmakers in other states are talking about reversing hard-fought crusades to tighten restrictions on gambling. Nine years after South Carolina lawmakers outlawed video poker, state Senator Robert Ford is fighting to make it legal again. Since July, lawmakers have cut roughly $1 billion from the state's budget to address revenue shortfalls.
And in Ohio, where voters repeatedly have rejected ballot proposals to expand gambling, Governor Ted Strickland said he is willing to listen to proposals to help close a $7 billion shortfall in the next two-year budget.
The moves come despite indications that gambling, long considered to be almost recession-proof, has taken hits from the global economic slowdown. This has resulted in layoffs, declining revenues and falling stock prices impacting casino firms. State-run lotteries are faring better, though: More than half of the states with lotteries have reported rising sales over the past six months.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Gambling News
Politics
February 2, 2009 (InfoPowa News) -- The Associated Press recently ran an interesting story reportoing that as many as 14 U.S. states may be considering an expansion in gambling licenses to help plug widening gaps in state budgets.
It's a possibly easier out for state administrations faced with the choice of raising taxes at the worse possible time or cutting services and risk antagonizing hard-pressed voters.
"Who wouldn't be interested if you're a politician who needs to fund programs?" Bo Bernhard, director of research at the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas -- a government-funded program told AP.
"While gambling has not been immune from the recession, it has held up relatively well compared with states' other revenue streams, such as income and sales taxes. This helps explain why past industry growth spurts have been preceded by economic downturns," the news agency noted, giving as an example Rhode Island, which opened America's first racetrack casino in 1992, and four states soon followed.
More recently, states faced with sagging revenues during the 2001 recession joined multi-state lotteries such as Powerball and gave more leeway to Native American tribes seeking to expand their casinos.
Analysts told Associated Press that the latest round of gambling initiatives are noteworthy in volume and ambition -- a sign that the industry aims to capitalize on states' badly bruised economies.
"From the gambling industry's point of view, this is their big chance," said Earl Grinols, an economics professor at Baylor University who specializes in gambling.
Ohio's casino advocates, including lobbyists working for Penn National Gambling Inc., are pushing a variety of large-scale development projects. In Georgia, a developer working with Dover Downs Inc. wants to transform a blighted section of downtown Atlanta with a 29-story hotel that would attract tourists with more than 5,500 video lottery terminals.
The developer pitching the $450 million Atlanta project, Dan O'Leary, estimates $300 million a year in revenues would be funneled to the state, helping to pay for a popular lottery-funded scholarship that provides in-state college tuition for students with "B" averages.
Even Hawaii, which along with Utah is one of two states without a lottery or other form of legalized gambling, may consider a change. Aides to Governor Linda Lingle, long an opponent of gambling, say she is open to discussing it as a way to close the state's growing budget gap.
Gambling in the U.S.A. is a $54 billion annual industry that employs more than 350,000 people, with most state gambling revenues coming from lotteries, racetracks and betting devices such as slot and video poker machines. Twelve states reap tax money from full-fledged casinos, and 23 others have casinos on Native American reservations, which generally do not pay taxes to states.
Opponents of gambling point to its dangers. "We've got gambling in 48 states, and you'd think if it worked, you wouldn't have budget problems or education problems," said Tom Gray, a field director for StopPredatoryGambling.org.
Many of the new gambling proposals seek to expand footholds in states that already allow limited gambling, the AP reports, pointing to the state of Kentucky, where the House speaker had proposed allowing video gambling terminals at the state's racetracks, and to New Hampshire, New York and Texas, where legislators are considering proposals this year to allow similar gambling terminals at their tracks. Casino advocates plan to push for casino-style gambling in hurricane-ravaged Galveston, Texas, as well.
Lawmakers in other states are talking about reversing hard-fought crusades to tighten restrictions on gambling. Nine years after South Carolina lawmakers outlawed video poker, state Senator Robert Ford is fighting to make it legal again. Since July, lawmakers have cut roughly $1 billion from the state's budget to address revenue shortfalls.
And in Ohio, where voters repeatedly have rejected ballot proposals to expand gambling, Governor Ted Strickland said he is willing to listen to proposals to help close a $7 billion shortfall in the next two-year budget.
The moves come despite indications that gambling, long considered to be almost recession-proof, has taken hits from the global economic slowdown. This has resulted in layoffs, declining revenues and falling stock prices impacting casino firms. State-run lotteries are faring better, though: More than half of the states with lotteries have reported rising sales over the past six months.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Gambling News
Politics
Casino billionaire bankrolls Labor, by Brendan Nicholson - The Age - 2nd February 2009
Figures linked to Macau-based casino magnate Stanley Ho have donated well over $1 million to the Labor Party.
One donation of nearly $500,000 was rejected by the Federal ALP after an internal investigation indicated "it was not a donation we should accept", the party's assistant national secretary, Nick Martin, told The Age.
The $499,980 was sent back to Mr Ho's wife, Angela Leong, who has also been identified in media reports as a friend of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
But donations totalling more than $1.4 million were accepted by the ALP's NSW branch from Mr Ho and his associates.
One donation of $400,000 to NSW Labor came directly from Mr Ho on October 31, 2007, and was followed by another $200,000 from him on May 29, 2008.
Then there were two more donations of $50,000 each from Mr Anthony Chan, who is an executive director of Mr Ho's company Shun Tak Holdings.
One of the biggest donations in the returns produced yesterday by the Australian Electoral Commission was $600,000 given to the NSW ALP on September 11, 2007, by a Gold Coast-based company called Hungtat Worldwide Pty Ltd, which again has been linked to Ho.
In 2006 another donation of $109,000 was made by Joyce Chan on behalf of Mr Ho.
The Opposition's shadow minister of state, Michael Ronaldson, said the donations made through NSW appeared to be a way of getting the money indirectly to federal Labor.
Senator Ronaldson said Mr Rudd must explain why some of the money was rejected and other donations were accepted.
"What did Mr Ho want in return and what knowledge did Mr Rudd have of this donation?" Senator Ronaldson said.
"It beggars belief that Mr Rudd didn't know about a donation of this size and clearly it was a back-door way of getting money into the federal campaign after they'd had to knock back the donation made directly," Senator Ronaldson said.
"The whole deal simply doesn't pass the sniff test."
Mr Rudd's spokeswoman referred inquiries to Labor's national secretariat.
Officials from the NSW branch could not be contacted for comment.
ALP national secretary Karl Bitar said in a statement the party supported a more transparent system of electoral funding and disclosure.
"We support the reforms announced by the Rudd Labor Government, which are now being blocked by the Liberal Party in the Senate," Mr Bitar said.
"In the return released by the AEC today there is a returned donation from one source. Given the size of the donation, the ALP conducted a due diligence assessment of this donation and decided that it should be returned.
"We conducted due diligence and made a decision this was not a donation we could accept."
Mr Bitar did not explain why the NSW branch decided to accept Mr Ho's money.
Driven by opposition to the Howard government, unions provided the ALP with $9.2 million.
The biggest union donation was $1.5 million from the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association. (Credit: The Age)
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One donation of nearly $500,000 was rejected by the Federal ALP after an internal investigation indicated "it was not a donation we should accept", the party's assistant national secretary, Nick Martin, told The Age.
The $499,980 was sent back to Mr Ho's wife, Angela Leong, who has also been identified in media reports as a friend of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
But donations totalling more than $1.4 million were accepted by the ALP's NSW branch from Mr Ho and his associates.
One donation of $400,000 to NSW Labor came directly from Mr Ho on October 31, 2007, and was followed by another $200,000 from him on May 29, 2008.
Then there were two more donations of $50,000 each from Mr Anthony Chan, who is an executive director of Mr Ho's company Shun Tak Holdings.
One of the biggest donations in the returns produced yesterday by the Australian Electoral Commission was $600,000 given to the NSW ALP on September 11, 2007, by a Gold Coast-based company called Hungtat Worldwide Pty Ltd, which again has been linked to Ho.
In 2006 another donation of $109,000 was made by Joyce Chan on behalf of Mr Ho.
The Opposition's shadow minister of state, Michael Ronaldson, said the donations made through NSW appeared to be a way of getting the money indirectly to federal Labor.
Senator Ronaldson said Mr Rudd must explain why some of the money was rejected and other donations were accepted.
"What did Mr Ho want in return and what knowledge did Mr Rudd have of this donation?" Senator Ronaldson said.
"It beggars belief that Mr Rudd didn't know about a donation of this size and clearly it was a back-door way of getting money into the federal campaign after they'd had to knock back the donation made directly," Senator Ronaldson said.
"The whole deal simply doesn't pass the sniff test."
Mr Rudd's spokeswoman referred inquiries to Labor's national secretariat.
Officials from the NSW branch could not be contacted for comment.
ALP national secretary Karl Bitar said in a statement the party supported a more transparent system of electoral funding and disclosure.
"We support the reforms announced by the Rudd Labor Government, which are now being blocked by the Liberal Party in the Senate," Mr Bitar said.
"In the return released by the AEC today there is a returned donation from one source. Given the size of the donation, the ALP conducted a due diligence assessment of this donation and decided that it should be returned.
"We conducted due diligence and made a decision this was not a donation we could accept."
Mr Bitar did not explain why the NSW branch decided to accept Mr Ho's money.
Driven by opposition to the Howard government, unions provided the ALP with $9.2 million.
The biggest union donation was $1.5 million from the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association. (Credit: The Age)
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Chinese casino's big gift to NSW Labor, by Rhett Watson and Alison Rehn - The Daily Telegraph - 3rd February 2009
A casino king from Macau has emerged as a major donor to the NSW ALP, donating $900,000 to the party.
ALP chiefs returned $600,000 back to billionaire Stanley Ho, but still received about $4 million in donations, Australian Electoral Commission figures released yesterday reveal.
Mr Ho donated the money through his Queensland-based property company Hungtat Worldwide on September 11, 2007.
NSW Labor Party general secretary Matt Thistlethwaite said last night the money was returned because "at the time the party's finances were sufficient to fund our expenditure".
Meanwhile, the party accepted Mr Ho's personal donation of $200,000 on May 29 last year and two lots of $50,000 from Anthony Chan - on September 6, 2007 and October 31, 2007 - who lists his address as being the same as Mr Ho's in Hong Kong.
His donations to the Labor Party came as the state's only casino licence came up for renewal and the Government was said to be considering a second licence.
Eventually, Star City Casino, owned by Tabcorp, won the right to a monopoly in a $100 million deal with the Government.
A spokesman for Premier Nathan Rees said the political donation system was "transparent" and in no way linked to policy decisions. He also said Mr Rees remained committed to reforming the system through federal channels after abandoning his push to reform NSW policy.
Meanwhile, the Federal Labor Party returned an almost $500,000 donation to Mr Ho's wife Angela Leong on the eve of the 2007 federal election.
AEC figures reveal Labor received nearly $111 million funding, compared to $89 million for the Liberal-National Party Coalition.
On October 31, 2007 - three weeks out from the election - Ms Leong boosted Labor Party coffers by $499,980.
But the national branch of the Australian Labor Party returned her donation.
ALP national secretary Karl Bitar said yesterday that given the size of the donation, the ALP conducted a "due diligence assessment", and decided "it should be returned".
Other big donations to the ALP included more than $9 million from the unions - including $1.3 million from the CFMEU, $50,000 from the Australian Hotels Association and $63,000 from Coca-Cola Amatil. (Credit: The Daily Telegraph)
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ALP chiefs returned $600,000 back to billionaire Stanley Ho, but still received about $4 million in donations, Australian Electoral Commission figures released yesterday reveal.
Mr Ho donated the money through his Queensland-based property company Hungtat Worldwide on September 11, 2007.
NSW Labor Party general secretary Matt Thistlethwaite said last night the money was returned because "at the time the party's finances were sufficient to fund our expenditure".
Meanwhile, the party accepted Mr Ho's personal donation of $200,000 on May 29 last year and two lots of $50,000 from Anthony Chan - on September 6, 2007 and October 31, 2007 - who lists his address as being the same as Mr Ho's in Hong Kong.
His donations to the Labor Party came as the state's only casino licence came up for renewal and the Government was said to be considering a second licence.
Eventually, Star City Casino, owned by Tabcorp, won the right to a monopoly in a $100 million deal with the Government.
A spokesman for Premier Nathan Rees said the political donation system was "transparent" and in no way linked to policy decisions. He also said Mr Rees remained committed to reforming the system through federal channels after abandoning his push to reform NSW policy.
Meanwhile, the Federal Labor Party returned an almost $500,000 donation to Mr Ho's wife Angela Leong on the eve of the 2007 federal election.
AEC figures reveal Labor received nearly $111 million funding, compared to $89 million for the Liberal-National Party Coalition.
On October 31, 2007 - three weeks out from the election - Ms Leong boosted Labor Party coffers by $499,980.
But the national branch of the Australian Labor Party returned her donation.
ALP national secretary Karl Bitar said yesterday that given the size of the donation, the ALP conducted a "due diligence assessment", and decided "it should be returned".
Other big donations to the ALP included more than $9 million from the unions - including $1.3 million from the CFMEU, $50,000 from the Australian Hotels Association and $63,000 from Coca-Cola Amatil. (Credit: The Daily Telegraph)
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