Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Competition is good for democracy, just like it's good for supermarkets and airlines. It drives better performance, encourages accountability and ensures no-one takes their position for granted. When politicians know they can lose their seats, they work harder, listen more carefully and prioritise their constituents. Support for the major parties is at an all-time low, and communities across Australia are embracing a new era of representation with MPs that finally represent the community values. There is no such thing as a safe seat yet. I've been told that by many people across this parliament, from all sides. I think this is a great thing, and that's what my community thinks.

Since the 2022 election, I've spoken to these members and senators. They admit that they are working harder than ever before because they know that, regardless of how safe their seat has been for generations, this time it could be contested and they have to truly represent their communities. It's a win for democracy, and it's a win for the Australian people. It is against this backdrop that the government has introduced its so-called Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill, described by the minister as the largest reform to Australia's electoral laws in over 40 years. I agree that Australia's electoral reforms are in dire need of reform. Nobody wants to see Clive Palmer spend more than $100 million on one election, and nobody wants to see Australia head down the route to the US.

Our current resume for disclosing the donations lacks transparency and timeliness. The $16,900 disclosure threshold is too high. It doesn't capture the business forums and corporate memberships, and donations aren't required to be made public until more than a year after an election. There are also no requirements for political advertising to be truthful, even when paid for by public money. And there are structural inequalities and inequities in the design of our electoral laws, which mean that not all candidates are treated equally. Whilst I, and other Independents, rightly had to declare the cost of our 2022 election campaigns, our major party opponents were not required to do the same. We will never know how much they spent.

I agree with the government that there is a real need for reform. It is something that I have been calling for since before I was elected. Such reform should be guided by four principles. Firstly, it should improve transparency so voters know who is funding elections before casting their ballots. Secondly, it should reduce financial influence so that you can't buy an election regardless of whether you are using private or public money.

Thirdly, it should level the playing field to promote competition, free speech and the right to association. Finally, it should improve trust in our political system or certainly not undermine it.

Unfortunately, this bill completely fails on the first three principles and the way that the government is trying to ram it through the parliament without consultation or proper scrutiny absolutely undermines trust in the fundamental system of electoral reform. As the Centre for Public Integrity, Transparency International, the Australian Democracy Network and the Australia Institute said in a joint statement earlier today: 'This bill should not proceed in its current form because it would entrench major party and incumbency advantage and further disadvantage Independent and challenger candidates. Legislation that will have such a significant consequences for our democracy should only be passed after a parliamentary inquiry has had an opportunity to properly, thoroughly scrutinise its provisions. To do otherwise is not in the interests of the Australian public.' I completely agree.

Let's start with the process. This bill is more than 220 pages long. It has been described by the minister multiple times as a hugely complex reform that has taken month and months to draft. It's the biggest change to our electoral laws in over 40 years and it won't even take full effect until July 2026 and yet there has been pretty much no opportunity for proper scrutiny. The bill has been written behind closed doors by the major parties, with no public consultation. My team and I first saw the draft on Friday and we were briefed on the bill's contents just two days ago. No version of the legislation was made available to the public until it was introduced to the parliament yesterday at lunchtime.

Let me be honest. I know that this reform is complex. I know that it is very difficult to get electoral reform right and meet all those criteria I laid out. I recognise that complexity. I recognise that no form of the bill would probably make me completely happy and there would always be compromises. But, if nothing else, the way that the government is trying to ram this through the parliament really is the most egregious of its acts. It is deeply undermining of any trust that we should have in the government when it says that it is trying to do this for the right reasons. It is absolutely unconscionable.

The government has said it intends to pass the legislation within the sitting fortnight. It intends to take it, as I understand it, to the House tomorrow to be voted on. They're ramming it through in the last two weeks of the year. For so-called generational reform this is an absolutely staggering and unconscionable lack of transparency and scrutiny. When the crossbench yesterday called for a committee inquiry as a standard practice for legislation of this length and complexity, Labor voted against that and most of the coalition didn't even turn up to the vote. The government has said, 'We are open to amendments and discussion on some of these items,' but I can't even get the drafters to do drafting amendments because they have to be put into the House so quickly. The government say: 'We care about expert opinions. We care about hearing from experts.' Some of those experts I mentioned earlier we have been speaking to to try and understand things like how the nominated entities work. They can't give me a clear answer. The minister's own new chief of staff can't give me a clear answer on some of these absolutely incredibly important points of law. I'm speaking on the bill and we're expected to vote on it, probably, tomorrow. This is absolutely unconscionable. If the bill is so great, the government should be open to scrutiny. The fact they are not tells you that they have something to hide. It tells you that this bill is a stitch-up between the major parties, designed to entrench their incumbency and lock out new entrants.

Let's go through the bill's aspects now in detail, one by one. Let's start with transparency. Whilst the process has been shocking, I do acknowledge there are some positive aspects to the bill. I welcome the lowering of the donation threshold to $1,000 and requiring donations to be disclosed in closer to real time. I also cautiously welcome the expanded definition of 'gift', which will now include business forum memberships and cash-for-access dinners. These are changes I have long advocated for and will mean voters know more about who is funding campaigns before they cast their ballots.

However, I note two major concerns when it comes to transparency. Firstly, the reforms will not be in place when voters go to the polls in 2025. The public will still have no idea who is funding their elections. This is despite the crossbench offering on multiple occasions during this parliament to support the passage of transparency measures like this.

We could have got this done a long time ago. It is Labor's choice to delay this implementation, and it shows extreme cynicism that they've chosen to combine them with sweeping and controversial changes in the bill. It is wedge politics at its worst.

My second concern is that there are a huge number of exemptions to the definition of what constitutes a donation or a gift in this bill. Indeed, there are more than three pages of exemptions in this bill, including subscriptions, levies, loans and much more. I asked the government to explain the rationale for each of these exemptions. I'm still waiting for an explanation, and, again, I'm meant to vote on this bill tomorrow. Some may be perfectly legitimate, but it is impossible to be sure. It is impossible to consider the various implications with essentially 48 hours notice, and it is another reason why we need a committee inquiry.

Let me move to concerns about public funding. Beyond the poor process and lack of clarity over these carve-outs, I have four concerns over the substance of this bill. The first is the massive increase in public funding for politicians. Under this bill, public funding per vote will increase from $2.91 at the last election to $5.00. The Australia Institute estimates that at least three-quarters of this will go to the major parties. Incumbents will be able to claim their funding in advance, according to as yet unspecified set rules determined by the minister. On top of this, each sitting MP will receive an additional $30,000 per year for admin support, and senators will receive $15,000. This is in addition to the existing nearly $3 million in allowances for staff, travel, communications and administration that we all already receive. Unlike in South Australia, there is no cap on how many MPs or senators from each party can get this $30,000 rebate, meaning that 85 per cent of this funding flows to the major parties. And, at a time when many Australians can't pay their rent, this bill is a multimillion-dollar subsidy to the major parties. The increase in public funding is estimated to be at least $70 million compared to 2022, and the vast majority will be funnelled to Labor and the coalition.

Worse still, this increase in public funding creates a huge structural advantage for incumbents against new challengers—as if there weren't enough of those already. The minister argues that the $30,000 admin allowance is necessary to help cope with the burden of the new disclosure regime. But what about the compliance costs for a new Independent challenger? Don't they face exactly the same obligations? They do. But apparently they just have to get on with it.

The minister also argues that each MP should get this allowance, that there are no such things as economies of scale and that every MP has to carry out the same task so they should get the same admin funding—except, in fact, they don't. Yesterday evening we heard, from the chief of staff of the minister, that the major party MPs won't even have their own campaign accounts; they won't be responsible for tracking their own spending and what donations they receive. Head office will do that for them, but they still need that $30,000 admin allowance each, and Independent challengers get absolutely nothing. There's no justification for this. And, worst of all, because the government has reneged on its promise to include truth-in-political-advertising laws alongside these reforms, taxpayers will be funding more to fund election ads that tell lies.

My second concern for this bill relates to donation caps. While I support limiting donations, the way that the caps have been designed creates a significant advantage, once again, for the major parties over Independents. A single donor can give $20,000 per year to an Independent, but they can give $180,000 to the Labor Party by donating to each of the eight state and territory branches as well as the national party. This disparity grows even larger over a parliamentary term. An Independent can receive up to $80,000 from a donor across four years, but Labor can receive $720,000. This is a ninefold advantage. For challengers, who typically only begin fundraising the year before the election, this gap is even wider. Because they're not running a party operation for the whole political cycle, they miss out on multiple opportunities to collect donations, meaning they could be eligible to receive 36 times less from each donor than the Labor Party. This means they will start their campaigns with enormous fundraising deficits.

This disparity around caps is compounded by the treatment, under this bill, of so-called nominated entities. This is my third key concern. It's widely known that over many years the major parties have established vast fundraising vehicles based on historical property holdings and business ventures. The Victorian Liberals' Cormack Foundation is reported to have assets of more than $100 million. In the same state, Labor's special cash cow is an entity called Labor Services and Holdings, and the Nationals have something called Pilliwinks Pty Ltd.

Electoral reform that levelled the playing field would treat donations from these entities just like donations from everyone else and cap them at $20,000, but it's not clear what is happening under this bill. Instead, the feedback I've received from several experts suggests that donations from nominated entities may be exempt from the caps. If so, each party branch—that's nine for Labor and eight for the Liberals—would be able to nominate a different entity which was exempt from the rules, locking in unlimited donations from these historical fundraising vehicles. Can Independents set up their own vehicles? No, not really. Because a cap on donations to nominated entities applies, new entrants will never be able to set up the nominated entities of equivalent size to those of the major parties. A major party advantage would once again be locked in. The government may dispute this interpretation, but the provisions of this bill are so complex, particularly when it comes to nominated entities, the experts can't tell me if they are sure, and the chief of staff for the minister can't tell me either.

My final concern relates to spending caps. On paper, there are $800,000 spending caps for individual candidates. That seems reasonable, but when you unpack how these rules are applied, it's clear they create a structural bias towards the major parties. While an independent candidate is limited to spending $800,000, a Liberal or Labor candidate can not only spend $800,000 but also benefit from their party's advertising for the Senate, which can be up to $9.2 million in New South Wales, as well as from their party's spending on national advertising, which can be up to $90 million overall. When these streams are combined, major parties have the ability to outspend independents in marginal seats by a significant margin.

Let me give you an example. The Liberal Party in Wentworth could line every street with corflutes saying, 'Vote 1 Liberal,' and it would not count towards their candidates' $800,000 cap. But if I said, 'Vote 1 Allegra Spender, Independent,' it would be captured. For new challengers, this is even more dire. There is no acknowledgement in this bill that new entrants need to spend heavily to build name recognition, credibility and a support base, whereas a major party could turn up for just a few days before the election and probably get a 30 per cent primary vote without anyone even knowing their name. Labor and Liberals claim that this bill will get the big money out of politics. This is simply not true. What this bill will do is lock in massive amounts of public funding for major parties by kneecapping their opponents. (Time expired)

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