Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This government loves to punch down. They will hang out with billionaires and big corporations, take their money and let billionaires buy elections for them, but, if a charity, an advocacy group or a non-government organisation dares speak up, they come after them and change the law to stop them from speaking out. We have a government that was elected because a billionaire, Clive Palmer, decided to purchase more political advertising than anyone else could afford and use it all to attack the government's opponents and back the government, delivering an election off the back of unlimited spending the likes of which we hadn't seen in this country. That is a threat to democracy. Billionaires and big corporations being able to buy elections is a threat to democracy.

But what does the government do?

Does it say, 'Well, we could change the electoral laws to stop people being able to buy elections by perhaps limiting the amount they could donate to political parties to $1,000 a year so we start to get some of the big money out of politics'? Does it say, 'Let's have a look at limiting the amount political parties can spend during elections to put everyone on a level playing field'? Does it say, 'Let's look at having a federal anticorruption watchdog to stop the revolving door of ministers and politicians and big corporations so that we can have some semblance of guarantee that decisions were being made in this place in the public interest rather than being made for big corporate interests'? No. It does none of those things that would go some way to making this place serve the people instead of serving the billionaires and the big corporations.

But what it does find time to do—when it can't bring an anticorruption watchdog bill, when it can't bring donations reform to the parliament—is come and attack charities and organisations who have spoken out. This bill is about organisations in civil society, in our democracy, who have the right to speak out about policy issues and say, 'Hang on, if party X puts this law in, it's going to affect the people that we are representing and that we're advocating on behalf of.' The government says, 'Those people at the moment are already highly regulated, but we are now going to put additional onerous requirements on them and treat them as political campaigners because they've said something that could be seen as remotely critical of our government.' As a result, there will be a whole lot of new regulations and requirements that these people will have to abide by. Many of them can't afford to do it. So this bill is actually about silencing civil society and democratic groups in an already very highly regulated sector in the lead-up to an election.

Why is the government scared of what groups in civil society might have to say? Is it because the government has kept people in this rich country of ours living below the poverty line for so long and forced people who haven't got a job to go without the essentials and live a life without dignity? Is it because sometimes groups who have to deal with the systemic poverty the government has chosen to put people into speak up and say, 'Hey, hang on, we've got to treat people better in this country'? Is it because the government is worried that they went off to Glasgow with the Prime Minister and the energy minister like cigarette salesman in a cancer ward, saying, 'We're coming here, to this international conference that's meant to be about tackling climate change, to tell you how great gas and coal are'? Is it because the government is worried there will be some groups that say, 'Hang on, we think that, when you look at the people we're dealing with who are dealing with the impacts of the climate crisis already, we should be doing more and getting out of coal and gas'?

The government is so fearful of people speaking up and saying, 'Hey, hang on, we can do things better in this country.' But instead of coming into this place with a law to lift people out of poverty or a law to reform our political system so that big money can't buy decisions or a law that says, 'Let's tackle the climate crisis', it decides to shoot the messenger. As we head towards an election, we are seeing now a government that is becoming increasingly desperate. It is behind in the polls because it has failed to take action on the climate crisis and made inequality worse. If there were an election today, looking at the polls and looking at the history, the governments would be turfed out and the Greens would be in balance of power. It terrifies this government that it might lose power.

So what does the government do? It comes here with a suite of measures that are about shutting people up or, in some instances, taking them off the electoral roll. We have this bill that is aimed at saying: 'If you are an organisation that looks after people but you're not about making a profit, you're no longer able to speak up and say anything political. If you do, we will have to make you comply with a whole series of regulations and requirements you don't have the money to do.' Our worry is that many organisations are going to say, 'I better shut up then because it's not worth the risk of falling foul of this law.' That is what this government is trying to do.

It's not just this bill. The government is also trying to stop people from voting: young people who move from house to house and don't always have the most up-to-date records; First Nations people, who we know are underenrolled for voting at the moment; and other vulnerable people who may have issues with language or documentation. The government is trying to push them off the electoral roll through restrictive voter suppression laws the likes of which you'd expect from the United States, not from a democracy with universal suffrage like Australia.

There is a pattern emerging. The pattern is that this government is so worried about losing the election that, on the one hand, it is trying to shut people up who might vote against it, or push them off the electoral roll; and, on the other hand, the government is courting Clive Palmer again, saying, 'Please, Mr Palmer, we hope you'll write us just as big a cheque as you did last time and buy us the election again.' We saw that from the Prime Minister over the last couple of days when he talked about my area of Melbourne, where we have people marching through the streets with nooses and gallows. The Prime Minister said, 'I can understand their frustrations.' We are coming out of lockdown in Melbourne and Victoria—finally—because people have gotten vaccinated. The Prime Minister then says of a rally full of antivaxxers as well as a number of Neo-Nazis, 'It's alright, I can understand where they're coming from.'

The Prime Minister isn't just giving succour to the far right; he's also making it harder for us to deal with the pandemic, by slowing down the rate of vaccination which is going to get us to the point where we can live something close to COVID normal. But it's part of the pattern that this bill is part of: an increasingly desperate government that can see an election where they're going to be turfed out and the Greens are going to be put in balance of power is saying, 'We'll lop people off the electoral roll on the one side, and on the other side we'll go courting the likes of Clive Palmer and the fringe groups that associate themselves with Neo-Nazis in the hope that Clive might ride to the rescue and buy us the election in Queensland again.'

That is the threat to democracy that we should be dealing with. For a government that prides itself on free speech, why are you trying to restrict what groups in our society are able to say on behalf of the people that they're looking after? You should have nothing to fear from what welfare groups, charities, churches or environment groups have to say. You should be able to deal with it, take it on the chin. But, as we've seen as recently as today, the Prime Minister can't take something on the chin, because he's got a glass jaw. So, instead of just engaging in robust debate, you try and shut it down. That's what this government is doing. It is trying to shut the debate down. These bills are bad bills. We will be seeking to amend them or join in amendments that are made in the Senate.

It's worth reflecting on one final point. Groups in the non-government sector—charities, churches and environment groups—don't engage in political debate just for their own ends. They're not political participants standing for office. They do it because they are at the cutting edge of dealing with people who are in strife, or areas or lands that are in strife, because of government decisions. They are the ones who have to step up and hand out the food parcels when people can't afford to eat, because the government has kept social security below the poverty line. They should be entitled to stand up and say, 'In a rich country like Australia there should be no poverty.' That should be an uncontroversial statement. In a democracy like ours, we should welcome those contributions. They are making those contributions because of the lived experience of dealing with people who are doing it tough.

There are two ways of dealing with that. One is to listen to the churches and the charities and the other groups who are saying, 'Hey, hang on; things need to be fixed in our society.' You could listen and do something about it. But this government is taking the alternative road, which is trying to shut them up. Again, these are people who are just giving voice to the effect of government decisions. This government is running scared because it doesn't want to hear them, because it knows the decisions that it is making are wrong.

I'll come back to what I said at the start: the government shuts down debate and tries to push people off the electoral roll when it thinks they're going to be critical of them, and it says, 'Oh we have to have greater requirements and regulations over who can participate in the political process,' but it turns a blind eye to Clive Palmer spending millions of dollars on advertisements designed to help it and it alone. If you're looking for a problem to be fixed, that has to be addressed, because something is wrong when billionaires can buy elections in this country. Yes, we need changes to our laws to ensure that democracy prevails in this place and that decisions are made for people, not for billionaires and big corporations. But we're not going to get that by silencing the charities and the non-government organisations, who are just speaking out and letting us know the problems that they're dealing with as a result of government decisions every day. If we were serious and the government really wanted reform, we'd come back here and look at how to stop the billionaires and big corporations having so much power, how to make them pay their fair share of tax, and how to get their money out of politics so the decisions in this place are made in the public interest, not for corporate investor interests.

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