Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will come to that, Member for Stirling, because it is interesting who the champion was, who the new sensation was. That was the conference where those opposite thought the best person to lead Australia and our economy was—that is right—the former member for Werriwa, Mark Latham. And who was his chief champion? Who was the chief champion of the member for Werriwa to be the new sensation? It was, of course, the now Treasurer, who we know as the weakest link. You cannot have a government where the weakest link is the Treasurer.

Who was at the ‘new sensation’ conference? Who was in attendance at that wonderful conference down in Sydney? Let me look at what the member for Menzies had to say. The member for Menzies at the time issued a very informative statement. He said:

In total, at least 85 per cent of delegates are union members and officials, former and current members of parliament, Labor councillors and party apparatchiks, leaving at best 15 per cent of delegates representing the broader community.

Eighty-three per cent of Labor’s frontbench, at that time at that conference, was comprised of former and current unionists. There seems to have been a bit of a cull of that figure. It is now back somewhere near the low level of 70 per cent, but I am sure there are some members opposite who will be seeking to push that rate up again in the near future. More specifically, the member for Menzies observed that 58 per cent of the people who attended that conference were union members. So this is where the mandate comes from—not from the Australian people; the mandate came from the ‘new sensation’ ALP national conference of 2004.

Labor state secretaries—and I have known a few of them in my time—were quick to get on the front foot. Those opposite need to be careful about defying the all-powerful Labor state secretaries. Some have tried to do that in the past and they have paid the price—they are no longer in this place. In fact, some leaders of the then opposition at the time tried to defy some state Labor secretaries. They also paid the price. The Labor state secretaries have clearly got their tentacles all over this place. They have a big red hotline to this place, just like they have to every other parliament controlled by the Labor Party in this country. What is their intention? Let us come to that. Their intention is quite clear. I must commend the minister, because he does make it quite clear in his speech. He says:

To ensure that there is no loophole for business to access a deduction for political donations, these amendments also remove general deductions for business taxpayers for contributions and gifts to political parties, members and candidates.

We know who that means. It means small business. Labor do not want to hear from small business in this place. They want to make it harder for the voice of small business to be heard. That is why they are putting up this bill. Small business in this country does not fit into the definition of ‘working families’ as adopted by those opposite. They are not part of that definition and, as a result, they are being left out in the cold.

I can tell those opposite that you will find no harder-working families than small business owners. They take risks for their own future and provide a future for others. Who are the others that they are providing that future for? It is those who are non-working families. Non-working families do not get talked about too much by those opposite in this place, non-working families who need jobs—there are still some. We want to make sure that small business continue to have jobs, as the previous government did for 11½ years with two million jobs.

The bill also goes further. It does not just deny small business the opportunity to get more involved in the political process, to have the right to be encouraged to be part of that political process. The bill actually goes a lot further than that. It denies individual taxpayers—mums and dads, working families, self-funded retirees and students working casual jobs—that opportunity. These are the people who are not signing the big cheques; they sign the little ones. Labor’s message to them is that they are not welcome at the table of political inclusion in this country on Labor’s watch. They will have to sit out their turn as long as this government is in place. But there is one exception for those mums and dads; there is an exception for self-funded retirees, I suppose, if they could possibly gain access to it; there is an exception for the students who work casual jobs—that is, if they want to give a tax-deductable donation and make sure it finds its way to the Labor Party; they can do that through their union, as the member for Stirling pointed out earlier.

These are the people that Labor believes are the dark hand of undue influence on our political system—mums and dads bidding for toaster ovens in RSL clubs, who ask for nothing in return but to support their local candidate and a cause they believe in. The Brian Burkes and their mates are not the problem. The unions who sold Currawong in Pittwater to back up their ‘bruvvers’ in Canberra and who funnelled millions through their books to support Labor at the last election are not the problem—and I look forward to reading about the return of the member for Lindsay on that front. Those sitting down to $100,000 dinners with Morris Iemma and Michael Costa are not looking for a tax deduction; they are looking for a lot more than that, and the Premier of New South Wales and his ministers know how to give it to them. Those sitting around tables with Frank Sartor to do business are not the problem. It is the mums and dads bidding on toaster ovens in RSL clubs. They are the ones we have to deal with. These are the ‘great problems’ that have to be addressed.

This bill is about protecting the entrenched advantages of unions and, I might say also, big business and denying those same opportunities to mainstream Australians. The union movement already receives shelter from the Australian taxation system to bankroll the Labor Party at elections, as they did recently to the tune of $30 million. Dues and levies are deductable and unions do not pay tax on their political activities. The new measures extend the franchise for political inclusion for mainstream Australians. It is being done to balance up Labor’s ‘big money club’ of unions and big business. Labor and the unions know that you can buy an election in this country. They have proven it twice in New South Wales and again, through the efforts of the ACTU and their union friends, at the last federal election.

In 1999, Labor and the coalition spent approximately $6.9 million, according to the Election Funding Authority of New South Wales, on the state election. In 2003, Labor changed the nature of political campaigns in this country forever and spent $13.9 million—from $6.9 million to $13.9 million—with $6.3 million spent on television advertising alone. That was four times more than the coalition on that occasion. In 2007—if you thought that was big—$16.9 million was spent, trebling the coalition spend. This type of imbalance undermines our most sacred democratic institution: our elections. And you do not raise $16.9 million in $1,500 licks. You do not do that by auctioning off toaster ovens at RSL clubs. You do it through the union movement and you do it by putting the bite on big business.

There is no bigger set of teeth than those of the New South Wales general secretaries, present and past, in putting the bite on big business when it comes to dealing with the state government in New South Wales. That is the heart and soul of Labor’s ‘big money club’, which is now running the Rudd Government. The same people who put Morris Iemma and Bob Carr into government in New South Wales put this government in place here in our nation’s capital. The Labor ‘money club’ has nothing at all to fear from this bill. This is not something that will keep them up at night worrying about how they may continue to have the squeeze put on them by Labor general secretaries and about how unions may continue unencumbered in doing exactly what they have done at several recent elections in this country.

The other offence of this bill is its pretension. Labor are once again parading around as pillars of virtue, the champions of election finance reform. That is who sit opposite: the champions, if you believe them, of election finance reform. But it is a con. It is a con like so many of these pillars of virtue that parade around. If Labor are serious about this issue, then let the self-proclaimed new father of Federation, the Prime Minister, pull the states into line on this issue and consider some genuine options for reform, which are about providing a fairer, more inclusive and more transparent system. Let him ask the ACTU—let him ask them and all the unions today—to detail the lists and level of support they received from their donors and supporters at the last election. Let him do that today if he is serious.

The second reading amendment the opposition has put forward requests that schedule 1 be referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Let the joint standing committee consider these and other options. Let them look at how we could harmonise the laws between the states and the Commonwealth through the Australian Electoral Commission. I remember in New South Wales, when I put this up to colleagues on the other side, they would say, ‘Oh, that has to be dealt with at a federal level.’ Now is the chance for the new father of Federation to bring that into being.

Let us consider some other serious options. The Leader of the Opposition in New South Wales also recently put forward a very good idea, which is very worthy of the attention of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, and that is the issue of expenditure caps—a cap on election expenditure, within a given time frame, in the lead-up to an election that applies at the candidate, party and third party and associated entity levels. The public would welcome, I am sure, some relief from the TV, radio and mail barrage they received, particularly from those opposite, during the last election. We should take a good look at whether that could work in this country. These are the matters that should be addressed by the joint standing committee and is why the amendment should be supported.

Free speech is important, but it would be hard to argue that the law of the jungle, as currently applies and as most vividly seen in recent New South Wales state elections, should be allowed to continue. We could hardly say it has produced a more edifying political contest. The cap proposal addresses a number of issues. I do not have time to go into them now, but I would be very happy to go into them when the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has the opportunity, which it should, to review these issues. We need to get the balance right on these things and that is something the committee can look at.

This is a very serious issue. It has been shuffled off into the corner of a bill which contains some extremely worthy measures; it has been shuffled off into the corner on the pretence of an election commitment. You would have to be quicker than Andrew Ettingshausen to catch it in time—you would have to be a lot quicker than ET to catch this one as it went through. There has been this big, grand statement that it was an election commitment; but, no, the election commitment was a direct function of the change of heart imposed on those opposite by the ‘new sensation’ conference in 2004.

Recent elections in New South Wales and elsewhere show that this matter is getting completely out of hand. The smell in New South Wales is getting stronger every day. Politics in this country should not be about how much money you have to put behind your argument; it should be about the merit of that argument. The charade that has been put before this House should be put to an end and exposed for what it is: a cheap use of numbers to press the political advantage of the Labor Party. (Time expired)

See this speech in context