Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

If ever there were a speech that demonstrated the need for the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Political Campaigners) Bill 2021, it is the member for Scullin's. 'Contest of ideas'—who is he kidding? This is about money. This is about the Labor Party funnelling more money into their campaigns at the cost of Australian democracy. This is about their obscene efforts to ensure that Australians don't know what they've been up to for all these years.

They talk about the concern about unions being involved in campaigns. Let me tell you, Deputy Speaker Vasta—if they can point to it, I will be happy to apologise—is there a single time that a single union, a single union official, a single union leader, has ever asked their members what they want and where they want their money spent? As I recall, in the last election, active union members voted for the coalition 52 per cent to 47 per cent. But I bet not a single union gave a single dollar to the Liberal Party or the National Party or any party that represented the members they claim to represent, because they know that if there were real democracy in the union movement, if there were real democracy in any of these groups, if Australians knew what those over there want to hide, which is how their money is getting spent, they would be appalled and disgusted. That's what this bill will achieve. This bill will finally turn the rock on all the cockroaches lurking in the dark of Australian democracy.

I encourage the member for Scullin and every single member on the other side to keep doing this from now to whenever the election is. Keep telling ordinary men and women of Australia, working men and women of Australia, that they're extremists because they don't believe that the Premier of Victoria should be able to put people under house arrest without any capacity of appeal. Go and tell ordinary Australians, every time they have some concern of overreach by an Australian government of any party anywhere, that they're neo-Nazis. Go and tell ordinary Australians that they're misogynist, sexist and homophobic because they committed the great crime of disagreeing with you. I encourage those opposite to keep this up.

I notice, by the way, those opposite were so concerned about threats of violence at protests in Melbourne but didn't seem so concerned when people wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the letters 'CFMEU' were committing actual violence against law enforcement officers. I don't remember anyone on that side standing up calling them extremists or bemoaning their violence. I don't remember the member for Chifley going on the ABC and saying that the violence perpetrated by union members against police officers in Victoria has to stop. No, no, that never happened. The rank hypocrisy of those opposite knows no bounds.

This bill is about simply saying to Australians: 'This is how those who claim to be charities are actually spending the money you give to them. This is how those receiving donations from foreign actors who may or may not have Australia's best interests in mind are perpetrating these things.' They get very upset when Clive Palmer spends his own money, but they only get upset with us when we say to some of these charities, 'Hang on, if you think this is the best way to spend the hard-earned money of the working men and women of Australia who gave you their money in good faith, for you to declare it.' No, they're opposed to that.

They want continuous disclosure. Continuous disclosure, I might add, is one of the best ways known to hide donations, because instead of giving $100,000 that gets reported each quarter or each half you give $1,000 for 100 days, and no-one sees what you're up to. No wonder the Labor Party want to bring that in! No wonder the Labor Party want to stop litigation funders from ripping off plaintiffs and from ripping off victims. It would have nothing to do with the fact that Maurice Blackburn gives them $100,000 every year. I'm getting angrier the more I think about the fact that those opposite have the absolute temerity and gall to lecture anyone about transparency and honesty in democracy. Those opposite are the people who took a $100,000 donation from Maurice Blackburn the same day that the Victorian Attorney-General announced that she would allow Maurice Blackburn to take contingency fees in Victoria. They have the gall to come in here and talk to anyone about transparency and honesty in Australian democracy on the very same day that a law firm gave them $100,000.

That's a law firm, by the way, that has a litigation funder housed in Singapore, incorporated in Ireland and with a trust fund in the Netherlands. Oh, no, that's not about tax avoidance! No, that's a normal way that you set up a company in Australia! I'm sure that's how all those working men and women of Australia who those opposite used to represent have set up their small businesses—domiciled in Singapore, incorporated in Ireland, with a trust structure in the Netherlands and an accountant based out of London! That's how everyone does it in Australia! No, only those opposite's donors do. Only their donors do that. Their donors do it, especially so after getting a decision from the Victorian government that benefited them to the tune of God knows how much but probably millions and millions of dollars. They don't want that declared. They'd rather talk to us about real-time disclosures, which is a way of hiding how much money people are giving.

So keep calling the men and women of Australia who work for a living extremists and neo-Nazis and keep telling them that they're homophobes because they've committed the great crime of disagreeing with you. I encourage you to keep doing that. Keep telling us how the ACNC is actually headed up by one of these extremists—a guy by the name of Gary Johns—and ignore the fact that he used to be a Labor member of this chamber. Ignore that fact. Ignore all the inconvenient facts you want, but Australians are on to you guys.

The fact of the matter is that those opposite will support litigation funders. They will support charities that are taking donations from foreign governments, foreign agents and foreigners who don't have Australia's best interests at heart and who will then turn around and use that money for political purposes. Yes, let's keep defending them. Let's stop exposing those people to transparency.

We have, at the moment, all these front groups starting up who say that they're about transparency and honesty and who have raised millions of dollars, but they won't tell us who from. They are basically being run by a group of people who had the benefit of being born to wealthy parents and now want to buy this parliament. They're openly saying it. They're openly saying, 'We want to put more people on the crossbench using millions of dollars of undeclared money.' At the end of the day, they will then use that to arbitrage and leverage decisions that benefit them and their business decisions. Those opposite do not want to expose them to the hard light of day. They do not want to make them actually front up and tell us: where did you get your money from?

Then they make a big deal about the fact we're doing this in the shadow of an election. So when should we do it? On the other side of an election so all your mates can, once again, get away with funnelling hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, into campaigns to influence the outcome of this parliament and to divert public funds to ventures that benefit them?

They don't benefit their members—we know that.

Since the Fair Work Act passed in this chamber, real wages have pretty much stagnated. They want to blame everything except their piece of legislation, but we know it. The men and women of Australia who work for a living know it, too. They're onto you guys. They know that you represent organised capital, not organised labour. Whether it's Climate 200, whether it's the voices against Liberal Party members, whether it's the rising 'something' movement that looks more like a souffle than anything rising, whether it's the OpenAustralia Foundation that essentially—I love how the member for Scullin has done it again. Those opposite do this all the time: 'We're going to move a second reading amendment speech.'

I wonder what the purpose of that was. Could it be that the purpose of it was to force those on this side to vote against what will be a nonsensical amendment so that theyvoteforyou.org.au—run by this OpenAustralia Foundation organisation, which, once again, has tax deductibility status and isn't audited by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission—is allowed to go on and say, 'The member for Bass voted strongly against disclosure laws'? But she didn't. She actually voted for comprehensive transparency laws in our democracy. That's what the member for Bass did.

Those opposite are the ones trying to hide the donations of their mates. Those opposite are the ones who don't want to see that actual Australians know what they and their mates are up to. They don't want Australians to see what the 'voices of' movement is up to. They don't want Australians to see what their friends are doing in the Climate 200 group, this new integrity foundation, the OpenAustralia Foundation, They Vote For You, the 'rising' movement, or the 'voices of' movement, all of which apparently are just community groups.

All the independents who sit on the crossbench, who don't have to declare where they got money from until after the next election—that's what they want. That's what theyvoteforyou.org.au want. But I say to those few Australians listening to this: do not believe what they have to say. If you want to know who voted here and what they really voted for, go to Hansard, because it's not a left-wing front group trying to pretend to be a community organisation. Hansard is an Australian government publication. You will see exactly what your representative voted for, what they voted against or why they didn't vote. The They Vote For You group is a left-wing front group. They've got tax deductibility. Those opposite don't want them to have to disclose where they get their money from, because they want them to continue to campaign in the shadows, in the darkness, where no-one can see them, where no-one knows what they're up to, where no-one knows, really, who's backing them. That's what they really want.

By the way, we know exactly what they're up to because they're open about it. They say to their friends at the ABC and Channel Nine newspapers, 'We want to get more people on the crossbench so we can have leverage over whoever's in government and we can make them do what we want them to do.' They want to change Australia to look more like them, but not like what the majority of Australians want. They see Australian democracy, this parliament, as an arbitrage opportunity. I don't know what those opposite think they're doing. They're making this possible. They're enabling it. It's bad for Australia. It's bad for this parliament. It's bad for Australian democracy. Instead of moving clever second reading amendments that make it look like people actually voting for honest government, for transparent government and for more disclosure are in fact voting against it—that's what theyvoteforyou.org.au will do. Who knows where they got their money from? We do know this: they're part of all these coordinated front groups.

Just today we have another new group: integrity something. It's in the name. Whatever's in the name, it'll be the opposite. They admit they've been working very closely with Climate 200. So, in short, this bill is about exposing this highly coordinated group of left-wing front groups that are disseminating misinformation throughout our democracy and that see this parliament as an arbitrage opportunity and not about democracy. (Time expired)

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