Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the last few days I have had a look at what the coalition have said about the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2009, including what the shadow special minister of state, Senator Ronaldson, had to say about it in his speech on 11 March. I wanted to see what ideas the coalition might have with respect to the comprehensive reform they so eloquently talk about. I went through his speech in detail. He put on record their very, very strong support for comprehensive reform. We heard the member for Mayo say the same thing today. But where are their ideas for the kind of reform they are talking about? You cannot find them in the speech, you cannot find them in the two pages the Liberal Party submitted to the green paper and you cannot find them in anything that the member for Mayo had to say. Those opposite mouth the words but do not offer ideas.

I grew up in Queensland, so do not come into this place and talk about electoral reform and political donations. In Queensland, where we had a National Party government, they delivered brown paper bags to the executive building in George Street. We had an inquiry into it—the Fitzgerald inquiry. We had a gerrymander electoral system through which Joh Bjelke-Petersen was voted in with 18 per cent of the vote. Do not come to this place and give us lectures about electoral reform and political donations, because the Queensland LNP, or the National Party—whatever political characterisation it wants to use these days—has form. For years we had a Queensland Premier who did not have a clue about conflict of interest, did not have a clue about the separation of powers. One of his most disgraceful performances was his testimony before the Fitzgerald inquiry in relation to that. So do not come in here and give us lectures about electoral reform and political donations as if you are the high priests of virtue, because you have form too. There is vice over there, not just virtue. Do not come here and talk to us as if somehow you are lily white and pure.

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