Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I will start by thanking the member for Indi for her engagement on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill 2024. I want to address a few of the issues raised across the collective of the amendments that have been circulated—the one that we have deferred a division on and the ones that the member has just spoken to. This will probably be my major substantive contribution at this stage of consideration in detail on the member for Indi's contributions, but I may, if I can, come back a little bit later in the discussion just to address some other matters that were raised in the House prior to question time.

When it comes to administrative expenditure, one of the things we're doing in this bill is providing more scrutiny of money that's provided to political parties than currently applies to public funding that already exists for political parties. As we see on page 144 of the explanatory memorandum, it very clearly states that, in terms of the use of this money, whether it be provided to an Independent member, an Independent senator or a member of a political party:

This funding cannot be used on campaign advertising in any election, whether federal or state. Administrative assistance funding that is not spent in the calendar year it is received must be returned to the Commonwealth the following year.

That's a good assurance measure. Further, it outlines on that same page the framework through which we have compliance and auditing controls. It says:

This framework will be subject to compliance and auditing controls, including the AEC's strengthened investigative powers provided by Schedule 9 of the Bill. If a recipient provides the AEC with incorrect or incomplete information about the recipient's administrative expenditure in its annual return and subsequently refuses to provide further information on request, the AEC will have powers to reduce future payments of administrative assistance funding or recover amounts paid.

As the member just noted, this gives effect to recommendation 8 of the JSCEM interim report to 'introduce a new system of administrative funding'. The model we've introduced is consistent with the existing framework that people are familiar with in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.

I want to address the question of the suggestion in the circulated amendments around an independent review. As a longstanding practice in this place, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters will do a review. After every election, different ministers of state have added additional questions to those inquiries, and some of those questions are why we now find ourselves here. The government appreciates the suggestion of what else can be done to look at the review of this. I want to thank the member for Indi for her constructive engagement on that question and note that conversations are ongoing around what that may look like.

I'll go to the amendments regarding targeting of funding in a particular division. It's worth noting that, where you have a party that is contesting every seat, as is common across a range of parties represented in the parliament, that effectively introduces a cap that they can spend in that particular seat of $600,000, whereas an Independent member contesting can spend $800,000.

It is also the government's view that there has been extensive consultation on this. No-one in this parliament is part of every single conversation of that consultation, but I have outlined in detail in previous answers not just the consultation that has happened when we've had conversations through the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and the report, having been out there for a year, but also extensive consultation that the Special Minister of State has led with people who are here in the Federation Chamber now. Parties or other bodies may interact in detail with them. With regard to third parties, there have been a lot of representations for the charitable sector to ensure they're not unnecessarily impeded in their work. We've had consultations with smaller community organisations. We might have incidental activity. That's one of the reasons we've lifted the reporting cap for those third-party entities to $20,000.

I'll conclude where I began: by thanking the member for Indi for her suggestions. While the government won't be supporting this amendment, we will continue to have conversations around how to make sure we can get this legislation done and make sure, as we have done through the normal Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters or through other processes, to continue to refine and review initiatives of this parliament, particularly when it comes to electoral reform.

Question unresolved.

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