Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is true; it happened in the Queensland election. In recent days there have been reports of this behaviour. It is a system which the Labor Party have benefited from for a long time and it is a system that needs to be changed. We do have a problem in this area. This bill is disappointing. It sells the government short. They should wait for the parliamentary committee to finish its work. They should look at all the options.

I am on the record as saying that the Canadian option is well and truly worth considering. In fact, I made some comments about this over Christmas when a hardworking reporter called me on Christmas Day. The story appeared in the Age on the day after Christmas, in which I dared to raise the issue about how much trade unions give and how much GetUp! spent on campaigns. I think the parliamentary secretary used to be on the board of GetUp!, from memory—not that they are a political association but, you know. The hate-filled emails that I received from some of the parliamentary secretary’s former colleagues were quite astounding.

We do have a problem and the figures from the last federal election campaign indicate that about $110 million was spent by the Australian Labor Party and around $89 million was spent by the coalition, or fundraised by the coalition and by Labor. That is a lot of money but it takes a lot of money to run election campaigns. Television advertising alone costs so much. The problem is that voters see this as dangerous and as raising integrity issues. In all fairness, I think this is a reasonable thing to be concerned about. I do not think anyone comes here seeking to misuse the system. However, the problem with the amount of money that we now have to raise is that questions will be asked on bills that we vote for, depending on who has donated.

A very good example of that happened in South Australia not long ago. For those familiar with North Adelaide, there has been a piece of land not developed for a long time because of disputes with getting approvals from councils and so forth. It is on the main street in North Adelaide—O’Connell Street —and it is called the Le Cornu site. It has sat there for many years not developed. In recent times, the state government moved legislation to give them powers to approve developments for what they call ‘specific need’. The state government has given approval to develop this site to the Makris Group, a well-known developer who has done much good for South Australia and for Adelaide. However, in the time leading up to the decision by the state government to give this major approval status, the Makris Group gave the Labor Party $180,000. This issue has been raised in South Australia by my good friend and colleague Rob Lucas. He has asked whether there is an issue with this donation. I am not suggesting for a moment that the Makris Group sought favour. However, is it right for people in the community to have to ask whether someone got a better deal from the state government because they donated this amount of money? It is a question well worth asking because it brings into question how we operate our electoral system and how we make public decisions, particularly when it comes to development. We have seen the problem with Wollongong council in New South Wales. It is a problem which has occurred in South Australia and it is still occurring in South Australia and across the states. Thankfully, the federal parliament does not make development decisions, because I think they do raise significant issues.

What it gets back to is that there is a problem with our donation system. It is something about which we will be attacked from the Left and the Right. You are attacked from the Right on the basis of free speech and that people should be able to do and say what they like. You are attacked from the Left because allegedly major corporations fund the Liberal Party. That is simply not true in modern politics. What happens is that major corporations give to both sides of politics equally, which left a funding gap between us and the other side of $37 million in the last campaign due to union donations. Unions give only to one side of politics. A couple of the rogue unions, the ETU for instance, I think gave some money to the Greens. But, in large part, the trade union movement in Australia give a large proportion of their money to the Labor Party, and alongside that they run political campaigns to benefit the Labor Party.

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