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

I speak in support of the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2010. This bill has nothing whatsoever to do with trade unions or the trade union movement. There is no mention of the same in this legislation. I heard the member for Wentworth—and, indeed, the member for Mackellar, when she was in the chamber before—prattling on about the trade union movement. They just cannot get over it. This legislation is about transparency, accountability and integrity in the political process. On 20 October 2010, the Special Minister of State, the honourable member for Brand, said in his speech on the second reading:

The bill aims to improve our system of political donations disclosure and election funding to help ensure that campaigning is fair and transparent.

The forces of conservatism, the bastions of privilege in this country, were against the franchise. They have been against the universal suffrage that Labor campaigned for. They were in favour of malapportionment of boundaries. I saw that in my home state of Queensland under the dark, long years of the Bjelke-Petersen regime. They made difficult provisional voting for those people who were itinerant. They have restricted enrolment; they have cut back the time in which people can enrol to vote when the roll closes. They have done everything they possibly can to cut back the franchise and to ensure that, as the population increases, the franchise goes backwards. Their true colours have been clearly shown—clearly against transparency, integrity and accountability in the political process—by the speech we heard from the member for Wentworth. This legislation is about those three factors.

By world standards we are a very young country. On a national scale, however, we are a very old democracy. Our national anthem talks about being young and free. We are right to be proud of our democratic history. Not many countries in the world have had a longstanding history of democracy and changes of government like we have. We are right to be proud of how healthy our political system is: the integrity, the efficiency and the effectiveness of the Australian Electoral Commission. Its impartiality is to be cherished and honoured. We ought to really laud the Electoral Commission for the way in which it has carried out its duties. The personnel there do a fine job—not for us the terrible events of Florida, in the US, in the presidential election some years ago! We do face challenges in our system, including changing technology, how people can participate in the political process and how influence can be brought to bear through new media and new technologies. With respect to political campaigning we do face the so-called arms race. The major parties spend millions of dollars at each election, at state and federal level, campaigning, trying to win the marginal seats, ensuring that their message is out across the country and ensuring that they get adequate and proper representation also in the Senate. There is a perception by many people that money does buy influence. Every person in this House would have raised funds to run their campaign. The political parties they represent and indeed the Independents, if they were a member of a political party before becoming an Independent, would have also been engaged in party campaign fundraising.

We have many elections in this country: local, state and federal. Many countries in the world, such as the UK, have local elections, but they have a unitary system of government: a House of Commons and a House of Lords. We are a federation, so Australians face the ballot box many times more than those in other countries. Indeed, in my home state the state election is held every three years. Elsewhere it is four but, at a federal level, it is usually significantly less than three years for the House of Representatives and the half-Senate.

As I say, there is a perception that large sums of money not disclosed can have an influence, unnecessarily and unduly, on the political process. Labor is trying to restore some integrity, transparency and some accountability in a system that was, in my view, abused by the 2006 changes by the Howard government where the disclosure threshold for political donations was lifted from $1,500 to more than $10,000, CPI indexed. The Howard government raised the limit for anonymous donations from $1,000 to donations exceeding $10,000, also indexed.

As a delegate to the national conference I, of course, supported Labor’s position of ensuring greater transparency and accountability. As a candidate in the 2007 federal election I was pleased to support Labor’s position. It is a position I hold firmly to my breast and I really believe that what we are doing here today is in the best interests of the political process and builds on the democratic values we hold dear in this country.

In March 2008, the Special Minister of State, Senator John Faulkner, announced the introduction of legislation that would comprehensively reform Australia’s electoral laws. The agenda included three elements: the first was the lowering of the donation threshold from $10,000 to a lower figure and preventing donation splitting to avoid the donation disclosure threshold by treating donations to different branches of a political party—for example, the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party to the Queensland branch of the Labor Party—as donations to the same political party, namely, the Australian Labor Party.

The second element is banning overseas donations and banning anonymous donations unless they are donations of $50 or less received through fundraisers—that is, taking a bucket around at a branch barbecue and raising some funds that way. The third is increasing the reporting obligations on political parties, candidates and other participants in the political process and making sure that we tie public funding to verified electoral expenditure to make sure that political parties and candidates, even if they are Independents, cannot make a profit from public funding. Mr Deputy Speaker Slipper, in our home state—yours and mine—we have seen a former member for Oxley engage herself in significant profit making by virtue of being a serial campaigner at various stages. This is to the discredit of the political system, in my view, and I think we should make sure that there is greater integrity in the political process. Candidates, if they are going to be reimbursed, should be reimbursed for verified political expenditure.

The coalition showed their true colours, just as the member for Wentworth showed them today, by opposing these reforms at every available opportunity, initially by referring the bill to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Electoral Matters for more than a whole year. When the joint standing committee reported on that bill in October 2008, there was dissent by the opposition. The coalition members dissented from the majority and simply argued for further delay, greater procrastination, greater inertia, greater inaction. That was their motto and their mantra. By their voting against the measures in the Senate in March 2009, together with Senator Fielding’s vote, the reform legislation which Senator Faulkner introduced into the Senate was defeated. By voting against a reintroduced bill in the House of Representatives, they again showed their true colours in their opposition to this integrity measure. By voting against allowing the Senate to consider the bill, yet again, during the March 2009 sittings, again they delayed the legislation and showed that procrastination was what they were all about.

Despite this persistent opposition, the federal Labor government remains committed to making sure that this legislation gets put into our electoral laws. We believe it is important. We believe it is also important for further reforms, and it is not true to think that this is being done in isolation. The member for Wentworth would have you think that all we are on about is an isolated change with respect to this legislation, but our agenda is far wider. Indeed, that was shown by Senator Faulkner bringing forward as part of the government’s comprehensive reform measures an electoral reform green paper on donations, funding and expenditure, released in December 2008. That was open for public discussion and submission. The government considers that electoral reform in its widest measure is important to make sure that the system works to the benefit of all Australians and is open and transparent to all.

This bill puts into action the commitment that we made to the Independent members and to the Greens to reform political donations—the funding laws for political parties and for election campaigns. It aims to make sure that the system is fair. I do not agree with the analysis of the member for Wentworth. The bill does improve our system of political donation disclosure. This bill introduces six new measures in the key three areas: increasing transparency of political donations disclosure; more frequent and timely reporting of political donations and expenditure; and—the third phase which I think is important as part of those measures—reforming the public funding of elections.

The bill today is largely in the same form as one introduced—as I referred to—in March 2009. That bill encompassed the government’s amendments to the earlier bill introduced in May 2008, which was rejected by the Senate. The March 2009 bill lapsed with the cessation of the 42nd Parliament. The introduction of this bill and the debate today demonstrate our commitment to restoring the integrity of our political processes and systems.

The six measures in the bill can be easily summarised. First, the donation disclosure threshold level is set at a flat rate of $1,000, lowering it from the current threshold of $11,500. Second, the bill expands on the previous rules on anonymous donations which, under the Commonwealth Electoral Act, could only be given to registered political parties, branches of parties, candidates, Senate groups and people acting on behalf of these categories below an indexation threshold of $11,500. Anonymous donations above this amount are prohibited.

The bill today extends this ban to anonymous donations except where the donation is $50 or less and has been received at a public event such as I described: a barbecue or fete where a bucket is provided for donations—a private event really, like a dance or trivia night, where people might donate smaller amounts. We in this chamber have all been involved in those. Today’s bill defines these activities and events, and specified records must be kept. Currently, if a third party wants to anonymously donate funds for political expenditure, there is no restriction under the Commonwealth Electoral Act. This bill prohibits this by requiring the third party to lodge annual returns of their political expenditure and also altering the threshold of donations in this instance from $11,500 to $1,000.

Currently, section 314AEB of the Commonwealth Electoral Act defines political expenditure on the public expression of views of a political party, a candidate or a member of the House of Representatives or the Senate, including an issue during an election, and the publication of material that requires authorisation. With this bill, only those anonymous donations of $50 or less received by third parties at a general public event or private event will be able to be used for political expenditure by entities required to lodge returns under that section of the Commonwealth Electoral Act. Unlawful anonymous donations, under this bill, can be recovered by the Commonwealth government.

The third measure is that all foreign donations will be banned under this bill. This brings us into line with other nations such as the United States of America, where overseas donations are not allowed. The fourth is that, currently, if a large donation is given, it can be split across states and territories to avoid potential disclosure, and this bill prevents this from happening.

The fifth element is that public scrutiny of political donations and expenditure can be enhanced by reducing time frames for disclosure. The final, sixth, element is that this bill will ensure that election funding is tied directly to genuine election expenditure so that no political party or candidate will financially gain from electoral public funding systems. These are a priority, and the reforms should operate from 1 July 2011.

We are a democratic country but we can make it better. We have a blessed system but we should allow our voters to express their views and wishes without fear of retribution. We are the envy of numerous nations throughout the world but we must always strive to make sure our system is even better and more accountable with more integrity and more transparency. These reforms do just that.

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