Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2010. The biggest concern that those on this side of the House have with the bill that is before the parliament is that, in typical Labor Party fashion, we have a bill that Labor are looking at implementing that is cloaked with the cloth of transparency and openness. We know that basically the entire frontbench—and, for all intents and purposes, nearly all other members of the Labor side of the chamber—were born and bred from one common heritage: the union movement. The Australian Labor Party unabashedly travel around and say, ‘We are representatives of the union movement.’ It is instrumental that the two members in the chamber, the members for Batman and Melbourne Ports, are perhaps extreme examples of the Australian Labor Party’s pedigree. Both are born and bred 100 per cent union men and nothing other than that. These people come into the chamber, they put their hands together, they wring their hands and they say, ‘We are concerned about the corrupting influence of big money in Australian politics.’ ‘We need to have transparency in the parliament,’ they say. The Labor Party say that they want to see electoral reform that will ensure that the Australian people enjoy a more transparent, open and accountable democracy, one in which our political parties are free from the corrupting influence of big money. That is the central thrust. That is the sales message that the Australian Labor Party provides us.

But when you look at the bill that is currently before the House—a bill that has been defeated twice by this parliament already—it has been defeated because there is a fundamental flaw with the bill, and that is that this bill, when you scratch the surface, actually is not about transparency. It is about entrenching an already unlevel playing field to further benefit the Australian Labor Party. Although I heard the member for Shortland wringing her hands and waxing lyrical about transparency, there are a number of realistic aspects that need to be taken into account with respect to this bill. What I am talking about is this. Let’s take, for example, the first issue that was raised—that of the disclosure threshold. Under the coalition we had a disclosure threshold of $10,000 originally, and it went up to $11,500, indexed for inflation. This bill seeks to reduce that threshold to $1,000, not indexed. We heard members opposite say they were not afraid of transparency and they were happy to say where their donations came from. Well, so is everybody on this side. We are very happy to say where our donations come from.

But the fundamental difference is this. I know that in Queensland when a small to medium sized enterprise or a private individual makes a donation which is disclosed, and if they only donate to the coalition side of politics and not to the Labor Party, then on the Monday morning after the Electoral Commission releases the information on who has made donations trade union officials or the state secretary of the ALP will be on the telephone to that enterprise or individual saying, ‘Listen, mate, let’s send a bit of lolly our way, to the Australian Labor Party.’ And if the person says, ‘No, thank you—I’m a supporter of the coalition,’ then, lo and behold, all of a sudden that business, which might employ a number of staff, starts having trouble from the union movement. Across the country we hear reports of small to medium enterprises that have made donations to the coalition suddenly finding that, if they have not donated to the Australian Labor Party, the bovver boys of the union movement start exerting a little bit of muscle and a little bit of pressure on those people, suggesting that they make donations to the Labor Party as well. That is the reason why the threshold was raised to the level it was. It was a level that provided a safeguard to those that would be intimidated by the union bovver boys so that they could make donations without threat of undue influence.

More importantly, a donation of up to, say, $10,000 is hardly a corrupting influence of a donation. That is the reason why we had that threshold. Now Labor talk about putting it down to $1,000, not because they are concerned about transparency but because Labor know that they will pick up all of those other donations that sit below the disclosure threshold, enabling them to flex a bit more muscle and attempt to intimidate people who make donations. That is Labor’s approach to these disclosure bills. That is the reason why Labor are concerned about transparency. If it is purely about transparency, then why wouldn’t the threshold be $1? Labor has already shaved off the edges by saying it should be $1,000. Why not make it $1? If it is only about the principle of transparency, then make it $1. But, no, they will not. It is $1,000 because they recognise that it is impractical for it to be $1. That is the reason why. Whether it is $10,000 or $1,000, a compromise has already been made about the principle of transparency. So why not allow those who want to participate in the process to make donations?

More importantly, and of more concern, are big money donations to federal politics. Let us look at the 10 biggest donors to the Australian Labor Party. I will run through the list: No. 1 on the list is the shoppies—that is, the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association—who donated $1.5 million to the Australian Labor Party; the CFMEU—the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union—donated $1.3 million; the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union donated $1 million; the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union donated $765,000; the Electrical Trades Union, $674,000; the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, $650,000; the Maritime Union of Australia, $581,000; the Australian Workers Union, $568,000; the Health Services Union, $366,000; and The Transport Workers Union, $304,000. They are the top 10 union donors to the Australian Labor Party. That is serious money, money that does not even come close to being matched by donations to the coalition from private enterprise or private individuals.

That is money coming from trade unions into the coffers of the Australian Labor Party, and it is coupled with actual political organisational influence and the ability for these unions to hold executive positions and positions on preselection councils of the Australian Labor Party. And the Australian Labor Party has the hide to lecture the coalition about big money influence. Half of the members—actually, that is an understatement—90 per cent of the members on the other side of the House would not even be in this place were it not for the trade union movement or, indeed, trade union lawyers. There are many examples of members opposite who owe their position in this chamber to the trade union movement. So it is little surprise that the Labor Party comes into this chamber and says: ‘We’re concerned about transparency, so we are going to lower the threshold and we are going to ensure that gives us maximum opportunity’—when I say ‘us’, I mean the Labor Party and their union bovver boys—‘to intimidate and influence those that donate only to the coalition.’

Let us look—because we are concerned about genuine electoral reform—at third-party organisations. One of the most glaring omissions from this bill—which is apparently ‘holier than thou’ to listen to the speeches of Labor members—relates to third-party organisations and political expenditure caps. Take, for example, an organisation like GetUp!. Across Australia, we have seen advertisements on TV of organisations like GetUp!, which holds itself out as being some kind of community activist organisation which simply tries to get Australians mobilised for the best interests of Australia. They say that they are separate to the political process. In my view, perhaps one of the most hypocritical advertisements of all time was GetUp!’s advertisement showing a big resource company pretending that a person had made donations to a minister or to a conservative government in order to secure outcomes that they needed for their mining project. This is GetUp!’s most hypocritical advertisement, because GetUp! is a long, long way from being the pure white organisation it pretends to be. The GetUp! organisation received $1 million of funding from the union movement to promote its activities. It is nothing more than a front for the Australian Labor Party.

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