Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Last night, when I was carefully reviewing the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Political Campaigners) Bill 2021 one more time ahead of the parliamentary sitting, I supported this bill. It included a simple provision to reduce the amount of electoral expenditure an individual or organisation can spend before they are required to register as a political campaigner from $500,000 to $100,000. These provisions would also apply where the amount of the electoral expenditure spent during a financial year is at least $14,500 and one-third of their revenue for the previous financial year. If this threshold is met, more stringent disclosure rules apply—the individual or organisation must register and be searchable on the AEC's Transparency Register, submit an annual disclosure of gifts and electoral expenditure to the AEC and comply with foreign donations rules. These are, in my opinion, sensible reforms which I can support.

As an Independent, transparency and integrity are at the heart of what I do. I believe Australians deserve to know who's spending money to influence the outcome of an election. I also believe in good governance and proper process when it comes to democratic reform, and that's why I was so furious and very disappointed to discover only a few short hours ago that the minister responsible for this bill tabled a substantial number of additional provisions to the bill without any notice at all—35, in fact. The bill has effectively tripled in size. Within a matter of hours, the government has added 35 new provisions to this bill. No consultation. No prior warning. No briefings offered. Nothing. Just a document handed to the Table Office and quietly uploaded onto the parliamentary website. This is not the way this parliament should operate. It's an accepted rule in this place that a bill cannot be introduced and passed on the same day. What the minister has done here is try and circumvent this rule by introducing complex new provisions, which are effectively a new bill, as a series of amendments. You can see from the time stamp of these amendments that the government finished drafting them on the morning of 27 October. That is almost four weeks ago, yet the minister has given us about four hours to consider them. What's even more egregious is that I even met with the minister 2½ weeks ago, on 5 November, and he would have been well aware of these detailed amendments but said nothing of them.

This bill is also listed for the Senate this evening. It's clear that the government wants to ram the entire bill through the parliament in one day, without due consultation. For me, that's not on. When I met with the minister, I was frank and honest with him and I expected him to be so with me. I said that I'd welcome any new law reform proposals that would increase overall transparency in our political donations system to a level playing field. I really believe in that. In the last sitting, for example, I introduced a bill to require donations above $14,500 to be disclosed within five days and donations above $1,000 to be disclosed quarterly, including cumulative donations. That's what I'd do. Will the government level the playing field and do the same? I think not.

As a community Independent, I don't take millions from corporate donors and vested interests like the majors do. I'm proud of that and wish the major parties would do the same. The major parties will also tell you that it's too resource intensive to disclose their donations in real time. But if I can do it, surely they could do it too. This is the standard of transparency and accountability we should expect from our political electoral system, and I urge the government to truly, seriously, level the playing field and do the same for themselves. There could be serious compliance burdens for the associated entities the minister envisages he will capture under the extended definition in schedule 2. It would have been really useful to talk to him about that, especially for these associated entities if they operate small budgets of only a few thousand dollars.

But I want to be really clear here. I had absolutely supported the premise of this bill. I'm in favour of one set of rules for all, and the minister knows that, but I simply can't support a law that the government hasn't given the crossbench any time to review or contemplate in detail. That would be poor governance, and it is on this basis that I move the following amendment:

That all words after "whilst" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:   ."noting the importance of this reform, the House:   .(1) notes the Government broke with convention and introduced a significant addition to this bill, tripling it in size within a matter of hours, and preventing the crossbench from having an opportunity to review, contemplate or be briefed on the amended bill;   .(2) notes that if the Government wanted to truly level the playing field when it comes to political donations, it could lower the AEC disclosure threshold from the current rate of $14,500 to $1,000; and   .(3) calls on the Government to postpone the second reading vote on this bill until another sitting day, as is the convention with new bills".

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