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

In response to that question, I'll just speak to the amendments for five minutes, and then we can move on to other questions about the bill.

The government does not support these amendments, because we do support expenditure caps. We think that that is the right path forward. We think the idea that you can have unlimited amounts of money spent in an electorate for one individual candidate is not sustainable, and we need to stop that. That's why we can't support these amendments, because they will remove those expenditure caps. They will lead to unlimited spending, which is one of the key issues that we're seeking to address.

The member for Curtin said that it was complicated and unfair. Is it complicated? Yes. But just because it's complicated it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, because it is very fair to make sure that we shift the power from big money—which is the power that is being defended by some in this debate—to the voters of Australia. That is indeed what the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended we do. That is what the government wants to do. It's time to get the big money out and put voters back in control.

I note that the member for Curtin significantly outspent her other seven opponents. But even under this proposal, with an expenditure cap of $800,000 per candidate, if there were another eight candidates at the election that this would apply to, which is 2028, the voters of Curtin would still see the ability for $6.4 million to be spent across the eight candidates in that electorate. Now, that's a lot of democracy. That's a lot of letters in the letterbox. That is a lot of signs as you drive down the Stirling Highway. It's a lot of billboards.

I just want to make this point. When it comes to the differences on the crossbench on questions about funding of members with administrative funding, we have the full spectrum. We have some members of the crossbench who are saying that we should have no administrative funding for members. Some are saying that we should cap that administrative funding. And the second reading amendment from the member for Warringah, which we just voted down, was to give public administrative funding not when someone is elected to parliament but when someone nominates as a candidate—a $36 million handout just for someone putting in a nomination form. I don't know about you, Deputy Speaker Goodenough, but we don't provide money unless people reach a certain threshold of spending. The idea that we would simply hand out $36 million just to a person who nominates is not a sustainable proposition.

The amendments that were proposed by the member for Curtin—there are many things I agree with her on, but on this I fundamentally disagree. I don't think the amendment that would provide unrestricted spending by wealthy individuals is what the Australian people want. I think most Australians would say that the idea that someone even has $20,000 to hand over, out of their pocket, to an individual candidate is quite a luxury to have.

We've had others in this debate say that $20,000 is a low or a small amount. You tell that to the working people of Australia who would never have the luxury of having $20,000 to hand over to a candidate of their choice. So, while the $20,000 cap is a very high cap, it is one that is indeed—

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