Liberal MPs paid AU$2,500 a YEAR to donor for electoral software licences Who pays AU$2,500 for an annual software license, for a handful of users? That question is on Vulture South's mind, with the Liberal Party under fire during the election for doing just that. The nearly-but-not-quite “scandal” (for example reported here at Fairfax) centres around Liberal Party members paying what seems to be a …
Agree that $2500 annual license is not hugely expensive for what is possibly quite sophisticated constituent tracking software. However, since the company seems to have no other source of income and is able to make rather large donations to the Liberal party, it would seem that the price has been inflated as a means of directing taxpayer funds into the party's coffers.
It may not be expensive but they are using public money, paying it to a company that donates it back to the liberal party.
Public money is effectively being channeled back into Liberal Party donations. This is highly unethical to say the least.
The Labor uses similar software but the company it uses doesn't donate it back to the Labor Party so they are paying for a service without the kickbacks.
Reported elsewhere and a bit of googling later, ALP use this mob Seems to be some union involvement but at least on the surface seems like it's arms length.
In terms of parakeelia though
"Its directors include federal Liberal director Tony Nutt and the party's federal president, Richard Alston."
and
"Last financial year, Parakeelia transferred $500,000 to the federal Liberal division, making it the party's second-biggest single source of funds"
So it's quacking and walking like a duck, but by all means draw your own conclusions.
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A single seat licence for @Risk would be about that (in AUD) terms annually and I've seen much bigger prices for scheduling software in mining and construction. Specialised software is not cheap as there aren't be any economies of scale (how many people are actually going to be buying this software?).
And really, $2,500 for a $500,000 donation? Not much of a kick-back. I am sure if you look at the constituency offices you will find a much bigger set of kick-backs from all parties - office rents will be much more than this per year and in the UK this has been a big deal for the Labour party "renting" office space from union donors. I am sure plenty of "donors" would rent a bit of office space out at inflated rents in return for a bit of a bung.
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