Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with some pride that I speak on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2010. I do take the opportunity to celebrate the contribution that the trade union movement makes to working Australians. Certainly I am a trade union member and I am very proud to be so. The trade union movement has played a very significant role for many decades in raising the living standards of Australians right across the board, in both Labor and coalition seats.

This legislation is about providing transparency in the Australian electoral system. In Australia we celebrate our democracy and it is appropriate that we do have proper safeguards to ensure that Australians right throughout this nation can have faith in their electoral system. Transparency and accountability in political donations is a cornerstone to a healthy democracy, and that is why the Labor Party is so passionate about ensuring that we do have transparency and accountability around political donations. This bill does provide the mechanisms for that.

The coalition’s track record is absolutely woeful. Time and time again they find ways of hiding the source of their political donations and support. We on this side want to see transparency and accountability in our electoral system. The government is not only keeping to its commitments struck with the Australian Greens and the Independents on forming government, it is also continuing to deliver the necessary reform that we in the Labor Party have supported for many years. This bill continues the government’s reform agenda.

The government proposed these transparency and accountability reforms back in 2008, only months after we were first elected. In May 2008, the government introduced its first bill dealing with political donation reform. This same bill was later amended, on advice from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Unfortunately, those amendments were defeated in the Senate. That was a crying shame. Those involved in the joint standing committee put a lot of time and effort into ensuring that there would be proper regulatory oversight.

The bill proposes reform in six areas. In particular, we are increasing the transparency of political donation disclosure, introducing more frequent and timely reporting of political donations and expenditure, and reforming the public funding of elections. Those reforms do go to the heart of a modern electoral system that is clear, that is transparent and that the Australian community can be satisfied has appropriate safeguards.

I will be discussing only a few of the measures within this bill. Let me start by bringing the House’s attention to one of the proposed reforms in the bill, the threshold for political donations, which is currently $10,000. This bill will decrease the threshold from $10,000 to $1,000 for registered political parties. That makes enormous sense. That will assist our electoral system. Candidates and others who incur political expenditure will need to declare those. This bill also provides more transparency and accountability with regard to political donations and gifts. This bill will also reduce the time frames for the making of returns to the Australian Electoral Commission. The time frame for submitting returns from donors is presently 15 weeks, the time frame for registered political parties is 16 weeks and the time frame for third parties is 20 weeks. Under this bill they will all be required to make those declarations within eight weeks.

Political parties will now have to lodge their AEC returns twice a year. This will provide transparency to the Australian community, which is something that those on this side of the House certainly strongly support. These reforms will also provide the AEC with more information, and that information will be made available to the Australian community. Again that is something that is necessary in a modern democracy. The information will be collected earlier than before. That is something that is critical in this area. This will also help with transparency for the community. All this data will be made available on the public record, and the changes will enable voters to view this information in a much more timely way. This is great news for our democratic fabric.

This bill will also remove the loophole regarding anonymous donations. The current situation is that an anonymous donor can make numerous donations just under the threshold to different branches or divisions of the same political party. For example, a company could donate $9,000 to each branch of a political party and avoid scrutiny under the existing procedures. This bill will remove that loophole. This will be done by using an existing definition of related political parties that has been found elsewhere in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. This will make it clear that each branch of a political party is regarded as part of one political party. The situation that exists at the moment means that each branch or division of a political party is considered to be a different political party. The Australian community do not accept that definition. We on this side do not accept that definition. But those on the other side do. They do that because they wish to hide who is making donations to them, whether it be big tobacco, the big mining lobby or many others. That is inappropriate. The Australian community do not like it.

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