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

An additional question I have is whether the major parties are willing to give greater transparency about their nominated entities, which are the ones they are going to use to fund their campaigns, which nobody else can fund in the same way—all these nominated entities that the major parties will have access to. They're considerable funds. Will we get transparency in terms of their assets, in terms of all those pieces? And will the government consider, if people don't have nominated entities—which could give literally tens of millions of dollars to the major parties as donations, completely legitimately, under this bill, as far as I can read it—making some consideration that if the major parties get these uncapped donations from these nominated entities then there is some sort of consideration for those people who can't get uncapped donations, those people who haven't got funds that were set up 40 years ago to the benefit? Or perhaps the major parties will consider handing over these nominated entities to the public funds? This could be a great way to fund all this new expenditure fees, if we just had the assets of these nominated entities.

They're legitimate questions. If the major parties want to be able to access uncapped donations from their nominated entities, how do we level the playing field, if they're going to be able to access those uncapped donations but are going to cap them for everyone who doesn't have these nominated entities?

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