Industry dictates Abbott's question time - Credlin emails shown to ICAC

Good grief. Here we have Abbott's close adviser Peta Credlin, asking if she can use lines from an email from Brickworks for parliamentary question time. WTF? I agree with the opposition, this is bloody outrageous. 

What's more though, there's now a connection between the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption's investigation into illegal donations coming into the Lieberal party from Brickworks, and the federal Lieberal party.

The emails reveal that, in March 2011, while the Coalition was in opposition, Ms Credlin used a major donor to the Liberal Party, Brickworks, as part of Tony Abbott's campaign against the carbon tax.

Ms Credlin is married to Brian Loughnane, the party's federal director. Brickworks was one of the largest corporate donors to the Liberal Party, giving $384,000 in a nine-month period from July 2010 to April 2011. As well as its brand Austral Bricks, Brickworks also lists property development as a core business.

The ICAC has heard that Brickworks used the Free Enterprise Foundation, a shadowy Canberra organisation, to channel $125,000 in illicit donations to the NSW Liberals for the March 2011 state election. Since 2009, property developers have been banned from donating to NSW political parties, but it is legal for such donations to go to federal parties.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus has dubbed the saga "cash for questions", saying: "We have claims that one of the Liberal Party biggest donors is virtually writing Tony Abbott's question time strategy. These are some remarkable allegations that go to the highest levels of the Abbott government." Read more

Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, has been revealed as the mystery Liberal Party figure involved in an email exchange Liberal Party lawyers sought to have suppressed by the Independent Commission Against Corruption. 

 In the emails, dated March 1, 2011, Ms Credlin proposes to use question time to showcase claims by Brickworks chief executive Lindsay Partridge, after Liberal NSW fundraiser Paul Nicolaou described Mr Partridge to her as “a very good supporter of the party”. 

The emails show Mr Abbott’s office working with Mr Partridge and Brickworks for Mr Abbott’s campaign against the carbon tax, at a time when senior federal Liberals would have been aware Brickworks, a prohibited donor, had channelled funds to the NSW Liberals through the Free Enterprise Foundation. 

Ms Credlin’s husband, Brian Loughnane, the federal director of the Liberal Party, was copied in on emails on July 30 2010 about a $50,000 donation to the NSW branch by Brickworks which was subsequently paid via the Free Enterprise Foundation, together with $100,000 to the federal party, for the federal election. more