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

This bill, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill 2024, smells like the Christmas ham on 6 January. It is a sneaky piece of legislation which is aimed at entrenching the dominance of the major political parties in this country. It looks superficially attractive, but any close examination reveals that its dominant purpose is to protect the self-interest of Labor and the coalition and to pull up the drawbridge against the Independents and the small parties.

The bill will limit donations and spending on federal elections. In principle, that is a good thing; we all want to see the financial influence on government in this country restricted. The bill will also increase the amount of taxpayers' money used to reimburse political parties and candidates, and that could be a good thing. However, caps on spending benefit those MPs who are already in this parliament over the candidates who choose to run against them at elections. They allow parties to concentrate their spending on target seats. They enable them to outspend Independent candidates in those seats.

Similar legislation—we've seen it already in Victoria and New South Wales—decimated independent representation in those states, and it shored up the flagging, bloated and tired major parties. Donation caps do not prevent cash-for-access payments to ministers or to shadow ministers, and they are unlikely to limit the effect of the associated entities which now account for a third of the cash which flows to the Liberal and Labor parties.

Let's be open about this: this legislation is aimed at propping up incumbency. It's aimed at helping those people who are already in parliament to stay there, and it's aimed at stopping Independents and small parties coming on board. That is why the Labor Party and the coalition have worked together secretly for months on this legislation. They have cooked up something which they are now rushing through parliament at the last possible minute. This is not the sort of transparent, bipartisan reform that our voters would like to see, and that they deserve. It is a dodgy deal cooked up behind closed doors because the big parties are, with good reason, increasingly spooked by the Independents.

The legislation has not been subject to appropriate review, and the government does not propose to subject it to appropriate review—by either house—by parliamentary committee or by independent experts. It won't effect the 2025 election, so there is absolutely no reason to push it through with this unseemly haste. The only reason the government is doing this with the coalition is that it does not want the public to recognise how poorly the major parties are behaving with this bill.

In 2022, one-third of Australian voters voted for Independents and small parties. In 2025, we will encourage them to remember this sort of cynical political manoeuvring when they decide who they can trust to represent them further.

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