Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2010. In the last parliament I supported a similar bill that was brought forward by the government and indeed, as chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which I am in this parliament and was in the last parliament, we did an advisory report on that previous bill and, in the main, recommended the passage of that bill with some modifications. I know that the member for Cook is in the chamber and he was on the committee at that time, and there was a minority report by the coalition members of the committee, who wanted further debate on the bill and said that it should be deferred, but the only substantive recommendation they made, which was the second recommendation, was to allow anonymous donations below a threshold of $250, whereas I think back then—and it is what is in this bill—it was a recommendation of $50 only.

I want to address something that the member for Wentworth said. He talked about big business being able to live with being outed in terms of their donations and the unions being able to live with being outed in terms of their donations but said that small business cannot. I have to say this: my view is that everyone should live with being outed for their donations on a reasonable threshold test. We should have transparency and openness. We should not be designing our systems so that there can be hidden donations that can be wound up like the Millennium Foundation does and never see the light of day. Or, if it is the union movement, the same thing applies to the Labor Party. These are basic principles, in terms of a threshold, as to what people should be allowed to donate before there is a disclosure period.

It is interesting that for a very long time, from 1984 to 1991, the threshold level was $1,000. It was raised in 1991 to $1,500 and it was only when the coalition had a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate in that period of 2004 to 2007 that these new threshold levels came in. When you do the mathematics of them, those new threshold levels allow for substantial donations to be made to political parties and they will not see the light of day. Now frankly, if we are going to have the best politicians money can buy, I want to see who is buying those politicians. And if that means that people will not donate because there is a lower threshold then so be it. Basically, they should be prepared to declare themselves—and I know that in other countries around the world, including the United States of America, people get disclosed on very low threshold levels. So I have always been a low threshold person. I do not discriminate against business at whatever level and, in the 20 years I have been here, I have always argued for a low threshold test. I can remember in the old Hawke and Hawke-Keating governments, and when I was on this committee I was always arguing for a low threshold. Why? Because I want to know who is paying the money.

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