Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

He is a major celebrity in our quadrant in the parliament. The issue is: is it an appropriate use of public money to pay people in excess of what they spend to conduct an election? I believe that it is not, and I am yet to find any of my constituents who think that it is. They figure they work hard enough in paying their taxes and if they want to make a donation to an individual politician over and above what he spends, they would prefer that they be given the option to do that themselves rather than the government doing it on their behalf. I note there have been people who have been elected to this parliament in the past who fall into the category of people who receive more than they spend, and they have then in turn donated that to community groups. I commend them for doing that but, again, if my constituents are contributing to the money that those members get, I suspect that they would like to know that it is going to community groups in their electorate.

One of the other major issues here—I do not believe that it has been a significant problem in Australia; it certainly has not bothered me in the five or six elections that I have contested—is the issue of donations from overseas. In essence, the provisions that are included in the bill are simply to shut a door before a horse bolts. I think we all accept that that is, in itself, also a reasonable view. There have been some significant donations that have flowed into Australia from overseas from time to time. It is not a regular occurrence, but it is not something that we ought to encourage happening in the future. The support for that provision is appropriate.

We then have a look at anonymous donations. Again, the dissenting members of the committee have not taken issue with the matter itself, but they have suggested a slightly higher threshold for anonymous donations. The committee has recommended that anonymous donations of less than $50 be acceptable. That really means that somebody who attends a local party function and buys a few raffle tickets does not have to have their name recorded and reported ad infinitum. I can tell you that the greatest amount of my campaign money that does not come out of my own pocket comes out of the pockets of my branch members who pay $10 to come to a barbecue—and hopefully we will get $15 out of them for raffle tickets. I noted at a recent function of one of our state MPs that he sold at least 107 $5 tickets for a bottle of wine signed by the local councillor. I am not sure that the bottle of wine cost him more than $6.

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