QLD: Langbroek in a tangle over party donations

AAP General News (Australia)
08-26-2009
QLD: Langbroek in a tangle over party donations

By Gabrielle Dunlevy

BRISBANE, Aug 26 AAP - Queensland Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek says he believed
details of his party's donors would be made public immediately after being declared to
the electoral commission.

But Mr Langbroek still has not put an end to speculation about a Liberal National Party
(LNP) $20,000-a-head fundraising dinner held before the March election.

Earlier this month, Premier Anna Bligh released a list of businesses who had attended
Labor fundraisers and conferences, saying the disclosure was in the interests of accountability,
and called on the Liberal National Party (LNP) to follow suit.

Mr Langbroek declined to release the names, saying that was a matter for the party
organisation and it would release them through electoral commission declarations to be
made on Tuesday.

But the commission says it could take six weeks for the names to be published.

Mr Langbroek on Wednesday said he had thought the commission would have released them
publicly by now - but he still refused to disclose them.

"I didn't realise it would take six weeks for them to release the details," he told
reporters in Brisbane.

"That's because I thought that when you release it, like many of the things we do,
it's usually up on the web within six hours."

Mr Langbroek, who has criticised Labor for accepting donations from a businessman charged
with paying secret commissions to a former government minister, also "promised" there
was no one at the LNP dinner facing similar charges.

He said he could make that promise, despite not knowing who was at the dinner, because
he had assurances from his staff.

"I have had reassurance ... I have checked and I've checked via various sources," Mr
Langbroek said.

"I have staff as well."

Ms Bligh has said the LNP's undertaking to release the donors through the commission
was merely a "smokescreen".

AAP gd/pjo/jl/

KEYWORD: FUNDRAISER

2009 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.