Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Indi, thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The committee functioned very well and played an important role in undertaking dialogue with people across a variety of places throughout Australia, including the residents in the town of Innisfail, which, as we know, was unfortunately very adversely affected by the recent passage of Cyclone Larry through the area.

This bill before the chamber today contains a number of key recommendations that flowed from the committee’s report. These recommendations were taken upon the best evidence that came before the committee. These recommendations flow from the overwhelming weight of evidence that the committee took from Australians throughout the country. A number of them made the point very strongly that, through some tweaking and some changes, our very good system could become even better.

It was also troubling for me to learn of some ways in which potential weaknesses in our electoral system were exploited by minor parties and, indeed, in some instances exploited by major parties. I think it is very important that the chamber pass this bill and that the Senate pass this bill so that all Australians can rest more comfortably in the knowledge that those democratic institutions empowered with ensuring that the will of the Australian people is best reflected in the election result are able to do so and that the result is a true reflection of the will of the people.

We have seen instances in the past, as brought out in the Shepherdson inquiry in Queensland, where the Australian Labor Party ruthlessly and nefariously exploited our electoral system to their advantage in marginal Labor seats. And I know certainly that within the state of Queensland there is widespread community concern that we should never again see people like Mike Kaiser elected to roles in state parliament when they have had their hands dirtied by what have been shown by the Shepherdson inquiry to be grubby political tricks, which actually resulted in that particular member resigning from the Queensland state parliament.

At this stage I would like to turn my attention to some comments that were made by the member for Wills. We saw the outrage and the feigned indignation from the Australian Labor Party as the member for Wills stood in this chamber and spoke at length, saying that increasing the political donations threshold would open up the potential for the Australian parliament to be corrupted. We saw the feigned indignation from the Australian Labor Party as they purported to explain that increasing the disclosure limit to $10,000, with the opportunity for there perhaps to be multiple donations through a number of divisions, in some way is the end of the bona fides of the Australian political system. In typical Labor Party style, it is a case of not listening to what they say but watching what they do. The member for Wills’s comments reflect comments that were made by Mr Griffin, who had this to say on political donations in this very place on 29 March this year. He said a claim that amounts of $10,000 and below were not enough to improperly influence political parties:

… completely ignores the fact that ... a party can receive multiple donations from the same donor. This fact clearly increases the chances of corrupt behaviour ...

Sound familiar? That sounds remarkably like the member for Wills. He continued:

... you would not have to be Einstein to work out that as the amounts of money increase so do the chances of inappropriate, or even corrupt, behaviour.

Again, that sounds remarkably like the previous speaker in this debate. This is where it gets very interesting, because the Australian union movement have written the rule book and are streets ahead of anybody else when it comes to multiple donations and the opportunity to buy your way into this parliament or the opportunity to buy your way when it comes to policy. In 2004-05 more than 260 separate donations from unions flowed to the Australian Labor Party, the party whose members have the audacity to come into this chamber and lecture us on why this is a bad move—260 separate donations from the Australian union movement. That is the reason that the Australian Labor Party is a completely owned element of the Australian trade union movement.

In 2004-05 the top five multiple union donors to the ALP were: fifth, the AMWU with 27 separate donations to the value of $325,455; fourth, the CEPU with 31 donations totalling $238,333; third, the TWU with 32 donations totalling $99,996; second, the CFMEU with 46 donations to the amount of $890,752; and, coming in at first place, the MUA with 47 separate donations to the tune of $78,350. Just for the top five that is a total of 183 separate donations from the trade union movement to the tune of some $1.6 million. By its own admission, the Australian Labor Party believes that receipt of multiple donations ‘clearly’, to use the quotation of the Australian Labor Party, ‘increases the chances’ of corruption.

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