Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am in continuation. I previously outlined our history, the history of those on this side of the chamber in relation to this issue and, in particular, the foreign donations policy we took to the last federal election. That's on the record. Suffice to say, we've been leading in this area. Actions are important. This bill will mean that foreign donations are banned. We will get improved protection of our elections from foreign interference, and that is important. This is going to be achieved without imposing unnecessary and onerous restrictions on charities and the civil sector, and that is important.

It does remain to be seen how effective compliance and enforcement will be, so I just wanted to make the point that consultation with the Australian Electoral Commission, the AEC, will be required to ensure that the practical operation of the foreign donations ban has good outcomes for our electoral processes and our nation. We need to ensure that there are no unfortunate unintended consequences. I hope that all of us in this parliament will remain vigilant to ensure that the integrity of our democracy is maintained and public trust in our democracy is preserved. For our part, Labor have consistently said that we support increased transparency throughout our political system. We believe that the current disclosure threshold for political donations is too high at $10,000, indexed to inflation, which effectively means it is now $13,800. We propose it should be $1,000 and not indexed.

This bill is a significant reform. It's a significant step forward. But it's taken a lot of hard work by many people, including by many charitable and not-for-profit groups, who have had to expend considerable resources—resources that should have gone to their charitable objectives—to save those opposite from their own incompetence. Having said that, this bill is a step forward. It remains to be seen how enforcement will work, but hopefully it will, with proper enforcement, mean that, in the future, our electoral process remains good and without foreign interference.

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