October 27, 2005 | Graham

The Cheihk of him



A little while ago I drew attention to the prevalence of developer donations to both sides of politics. Maybe we are about to find out much more about it.
The biggest donor to the Liberal Party is George Cheihk who passed across around $250,000, giving him almost first mortgagee status. His donations to the ALP appear to be substantial, but more modest. He is now being sued by a disgruntled silent partner in his property developments, Sydney medical registrar Dr Lloyd Tang.
Dr Tang alleges that the donations were made without proper authorisation. Will be interesting to see what comes out in the case. The Courier Mail reports that the donations were made “to curry political favour in respect of residential subdivision developments”. This of course doesn’t constitute corruption, unless there was an obligation arising or an understanding that Cheihk would be treated favourably, rather than just an expectation on Cheihk’s part.
Still, it was unwise of either party, and in particular the less wealthy Liberal Party, to allow one individual to contribute so much to their campaign funds, as it could easily give rise to a perception of corruption, and in politics perception frequently stands-in for truth.



Posted by Graham at 11:13 am | Comments (3) |
Filed under: Australian Politics

3 Comments

  1. One could expect a donation like this to go to the liberals .Another example of ugly politics and ugly business.

    Comment by kartiya — October 28, 2005 @ 11:01 pm

  2. Cheihk’s support for Campbell Newman in early 2004 extended beyond financial donations to the liberal party campaign. In addition to money, Cheihk also made QLD Group offices and staff available to Newman. At least one staff member worked the phones asking for donations to the campaign and another was put to good use as a driver and photographer! Such intimate support and daily contact surely invites obligations in the future…
    Livesay Road Developments is also a Chiehk company so you can add that donation to the amount Cheihk has contributed.

    Comment by kangy — October 29, 2005 @ 5:06 pm

  3. Crosby Road Developments is also Chiehk in one way or another.

    Comment by kangy — October 29, 2005 @ 5:12 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.