Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of this disallowance motion. Last year I spoke about this bill to this House. I observed then that it would end the requirement for superannuation funds to tell their members how much they're spending on marketing and sponsorship expenses, political donations and payments to industrial bodies.

The requirement for itemised information on payments to unions and industry bodies has been abolished. Australian super fund members deserve that information. In 2021, Australian super funds paid $13 million to unions. It's been suggested that that amount may increase to as much as $30 million a year. In an interview late last year, the minister said that those payments to unions and industry bodies were payments for services and that they should be treated consistently with other types of payments. He added that, if members had questions about those payments, they could attend their annual members meeting and request additional information about them. How very generous of the minister!

Data taken from the Electoral Commission in September 2022 identified more than $85 million in non-donation and non-gift payments by 51 super funds to political entities and their associates over the past five years. That is an extraordinary amount of money. It's the sort of amount of money that can sway an election. We've heard a lot about electoral donations in this place in the last year and we will hear more this year. It's a real issue in this country. We need more donation reform and we need more transparency about our political donations. This bill will deliver less.

Our voters sent all of us a message last year. They asked for sunlight in politics, and for integrity and transparency. This bill takes us backwards. This is not integrity. This is not an exercise in cleaning up unnecessary red tape, as the minister would have us believe. This is not making members understand how their super funds are spending their money. This is the opposite.

I'd also like to note that today this government has rushed this bill back to the parliament without proper notice, to avoid further scrutiny. Debate about the legislation has been truncated. I'd like to quote a much-respected member of this place about the importance of unimpeded debate in the House. He said last year:

It's actually about the millions of Australians who didn't vote for Scott Morrison. They deserve a voice in our parliament—but this is a government that doesn't want to hear any voices but its own.

… Governments of both persuasions have used their numbers to silence the other side from time to time—but not like this, not systematically, not as a matter of course.

This is the second time today that we've had a truncated debate in this place. Those words were spoken in this House last year by the current Leader of the House. He's not here now—very few members of his government are—and that's a bit of a shame because this is a really important issue, on which we've not been given much time to speak.

I have committed to the people of Kooyong that I will demand of their government due commitment to the democratic process and to detailed debate and discussion. I've also pledged to work in this place to improve the integrity and the transparency of all of the bills that we legislate. For those reasons, and for my reservations both about the process used and the substance of this bill, I cannot support it.

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