Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was last speaking on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005 approximately five weeks ago I was saying how outrageous it is that this government is abolishing the right of people to enrol to vote after a federal election has been called. I was calling on the government to commit itself to an advertising campaign to let people know that it is changing this law and to let people know that, if they move house or turn 18, they are now obliged to change their electoral enrolment immediately to ensure that their right to vote continues. But I would now like to turn to the matter of funding disclosure.

Every political party conducts fundraising, as does every political candidate. There is nothing wrong with this, and it is a necessary and healthy part of our political life. But it is important that fundraising be transparent and that it be open. This bill effectively kills transparency. At the moment, all political donations above $1,500 must be declared and are on the public record. It is true that the $1,500 limit was set some time ago and, while we would have supported keeping the $1,500 limit in place, perhaps some more modest increase being proposed by the government would have met more favourable consideration from us. Perhaps that would not have been out of the question and would not have been objectionable. If they had come up with a reasonable proposal for a modest increase, that would have met with more support on our side of the House.

But this bill raises the level of disclosure to the, frankly, extraordinary level of $10,000. This will enable secret donations of $9,999 to be made. Furthermore, the state branches of political parties are separate entities for the purposes of disclosure, which means that up to eight donations of $9,999 will be allowable. In effect, secret donations of up to nearly $80,000 will now be legal once this bill is passed.

It pays to look at some examples of international benchmarks of allowable secret donations. In the United States, only donations under $200 need not be declared and any donation above that must be declared. In Canada, every single donation received must be declared. I am not saying that we should adopt that system, but there is no case for increasing the level of funding disclosure from $1,500 to $10,000—a very significant increase which the government has not come anywhere near justifying.

What is the government’s reason for doing this? If this law had been in place for the electoral period of 2004-05, around 85 per cent of donations to the Liberal Party would have been secret. This is not good for democracy. Politicians already have a bad name in the community. If the community thinks that people or firms are able to make large secret donations to political parties and that these people or firms may or may not deal with the government on a commercial basis, then the name and reputation of all politicians will be sullied—and this government will be responsible for that.

I believe that there is very little political corruption in Australia on either side of politics. There is very little peddling or buying of influence and no evidence that political corruption is widespread in Australia. I would be very surprised if widespread corruption was discovered, but I would like to make two comments. Firstly, I think that one of the reasons that the Australian political system is free of corruption is that we have a transparent and open system of donations and accountability. Secondly, it is important that the system not only not be corrupt but also be seen not to be corrupt. The changes proposed under this bill fail this test abysmally. How will we know if someone who benefits from a government decision did or did not donate $9,999—or, indeed, up to $80,000—to the government’s re-election campaign? Of course, we will not know, and that is not good for the health of Australia’s political system. All sides of politics should declare their significant donations. Donations received by the Australian Labor Party should be declared and on the public record, as should those of the Liberal and National parties and all other political parties.

This is a bad bill. It is a bill which makes it harder for people to vote but easier for secret donations to be made. It is a bill which rips up 66 years of convention in this country whereby people are able to enrol to vote in the first few days of an election campaign. It is a bill which goes against the often stated recommendations of the Australian Electoral Commission—including recommendations made by the commission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters after several federal elections—that abolishing the right of people to enrol to vote in that period will reduce the integrity of the electoral roll.

This bill should be opposed and it will be opposed. It will be opposed in this House, in the other place and in the community. If enacted it should be repealed, and it will be repealed when Labor comes to office. Labor will deliver a system which provides transparency and openness about political donations in this country. We will deliver a system which makes it easier for people to exercise their democratic rights in this country, not harder, as this government has done.

A government has a choice when it comes to matters such as this: it can go down the road of more transparency and more accountability and make it easier for people to vote or it can make voting harder and the system less accountable. This government has gone down the latter road, and when a government goes down that road you can be sure it has done it for its own partisan political advantage. That is a matter of some disgrace and shame for this government. This bill must be opposed and we will continue to oppose it in every possible forum. When Labor comes to office these measures will be repealed and a fairer system—a system which provides accountability and promotes a greater degree of confidence by Australians in the area of political donations—will be put in place. Hopefully, that will happen sooner rather than later, on the election of a Labor government.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Prospect for his contribution. I hear his comments about when Labor comes to office, but I do not think that is going to happen anytime soon. Particularly after tonight when we are going to deliver the best budget that this country has seen for decades, I think the Australian people will be even more strongly supportive of the Howard government.

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005 came about as a result of the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry into the conduct of the 2004 federal election. JSCEM conducts such an inquiry after each federal election and examines all the issues. In this inquiry the committee travelled around Australia and visited all of the capital cities. It also held public meetings in rural and regional areas in Queensland and New South Wales. This is a very comprehensive report. The committee took a lot of evidence and the legislation before the parliament is a result of that very thorough process. It is a very long document, running to over 350 pages, but it basically comes down to 56 recommendations. Some of those recommendations have been taken up by the government and they are incorporated in the legislation that the parliament is discussing this afternoon.

The committee indicated that there are a number of issues that, in their words, require immediate attention. This report was brought down in September 2005, and the response to the report is here in the parliament now in May 2006. It takes a lot of time. Understanding that, having had recommendations put to it, the government has to consider those recommendations, formulate its position and frame the necessary legislation, this has been quite a quick process.

I note that the chair of the committee at the time that this report was brought down, Mr Tony Smith, has just entered the chamber. I commend him on the thoroughness with which he and his committee have produced this report and on the important recommendations that have been made in it. Mr Smith has since moved on to higher and greater things, and I have taken his place as Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which is my privilege. I hope that, in our current inquiry, which I will deal with shortly, my committee will be able to produce just as good a report.

In relation to the items requiring ‘immediate attention’, the committee reported:

Present requirements for electoral enrolment result in an unacceptable level of inaccuracy in the electoral roll.

If the electors of Australia were to read this report and see that comment, they too would be concerned, as the government has been. The committee recommended:

… the adoption of two significant enrolment reforms designed to improve integrity and to prevent electoral fraud occurring.

We have just heard the opposition indicating that it does not agree with this response. It does not agree with the committee’s recommendations of reforms designed to improve the integrity of our electoral roll and to prevent electoral fraud occurring. Goodness me, how could that be? And why would the Labor Party want to do that? The answer clearly is encapsulated in the experience I have had in my electorate, where, some three or four years ago, there was significant rorting of the electoral roll by members of the Australian Labor Party. There was a celebrated court case over that. In fact, one state member of parliament, as I recollect, had to resign from the parliament. No wonder the Labor Party is railing against sensible measures designed to improve the integrity of the roll and to prevent electoral fraud occurring. I congratulate the committee on being pretty tough on this one, and I congratulate the government on taking up the recommendations.

The first requirement and recommendation encapsulated in this legislation is that of proof of identity. The legislation will introduce, for the first time, proof of identity requirements for people enrolling or updating their enrolment. Currently you can just fill out a form—you do not have to prove who you are—and you go on the electoral roll. That gives rise to a mechanism whereby you can actually put phantom people on the roll, if you choose. All we require in this instance is that people have a drivers licence number on their enrolment, which will be cross-checked by the AEC with state databases. If there is no drivers licence—some people do not have a drivers licence—and they want to be enrolled, it is as simple as providing a birth certificate or Medicare card, along with a person from a prescribed class being able to attest to the identity of the applicant. We still provide in the legislation for the unlikely case where there is no documentation—that would be really unlikely. Enrolment of the person will proceed, provided that that procedure is followed.

The second matter in relation to identity is the proof of ID for provisional voting. This is where someone comes to a polling station, finds they are not on the roll and says, ‘I’m entitled to be on the roll, I’m not enrolled and I demand my right to vote.’ Previously people have just been allowed to cast a vote; now they will have to prove who they are before the AEC officer will allow them to cast a provisional vote. There are also safeguards there: if you do not have your ID—that can happen—you have several days to submit it to the AEC. I think these are sensible reforms that the government has embraced.

The other matter that particularly drew the attention of the committee, which again was railed against by the Australian Labor Party, was the closing of the roll at 8 pm on the day that writs are issued. It has always puzzled me that so many people who know it is a legal requirement to enrol to vote do not do so and then, when an election is called, they pour in and say, ‘Gee, we want to get our name on the roll.’ They have got to do better than that, and I think the community expects people to be enrolled in our democratic system. That is our way. So the government is proposing to address that matter by simply closing the rolls at eight o’clock on the day the writ is issued for people who are not already on the roll and at 8 pm on the third working day after the issue of the writ for people updating their address details. I think that is sensible and prudent.

I note that the bill provides for people who turn 18 or who are due to be granted citizenship during the campaign to also have three working days to update their enrolment. When people are 17, I believe they can provisionally enrol and the AEC then automatically enrols them when they have their birthday. It puzzles me why it is necessary to have this but it is the Australian way. We are providing for all eventualities. There are a raft of other issues covered in this legislation. There is some more technical stuff in relation to prisoner voting, party registration, party names and internet authorisation requirements, just to name a few.

I would like to finish my contribution to the debate by observing that the committee also recommended a trial of electronic voting. I think there is a need for such a trial. The government has not taken up that recommendation. Electronic voting is used in other parts of the world. I visited the Election Commission of Thailand last week and they showed me their electronic voting machines. It is a particularly impressive system because it allows an easy way for blind voters to cast their vote without third parties being involved. I think a trial—if we are going to do a trial—should be initially with members of the Defence Force who are serving overseas. The electronic voting should be done over the defence integrated secure communications network so that there can be no question about the integrity of the vote. Alternatively, it may also be able to be done through the DFAT network at our posts around the world using DFAT’s secure communications service. I do not think we are going to see electronic voting over the internet at any time in the near or far future. It is too unreliable and people would have concerns with that. I will be pursuing that particular issue through the committee so that we can see whether we can get some action on that.

Finally, I note recommendation 56, which states:

The Committee recommends that the Parliament refer electoral education to the JSCEM for further examination and report.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Deputy Speaker for that. I would like to advise the parliament that that has been done. The committee has that reference from the Special Minister of State and will shortly begin conducting an inquiry into those matters and having a look at education as the key to a healthy democracy. I support this bill and I am disappointed that the Australian Labor Party will not support something that will further improve the integrity of our electoral roll.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I commence my remarks on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005, with the current Chair and the past Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters here, let me say that I worked in a nonpartisan way on the proposal of the former chairman for four-year terms. The negative comments that I am going to make about this legislation should not be interpreted as obviating the fact that many of us worked together to improve the Australian electoral system.

This bill is the first instalment of this government’s agenda for radical changes to Australia’s electoral laws. Its agenda was foreshadowed in the recommendations of the majority report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters of which I am deputy chair. We debated the report last October. In our minority report, the other opposition members and I warned that, if the recommendations of the majority report were put into law, this would be a retrograde step for Australian democracy. We warned that the Howard government, now in control of the Senate, would seek to rig the Australian electoral system for its own advantage. We warned that this arrogant government would use its position of complete parliamentary control to seek to entrench itself in power through extreme legislation. Sadly, this is what we are seeing with this bill, which is no doubt the first in a series of such bills.

This bill deals with three of the central recommendations of the majority report. They are recommendations which work most clearly to the electoral advantage of the government parties. These are: first, tougher identity requirements for enrolment and to cast a provisional vote; second, the early closure of the electoral roll; and, third, increasing the amount that can be donated to a political party without that donation being declared. The effect of these changes, if they are passed by this parliament, will be to make it harder for ordinary Australians to enrol and to vote but easier for individuals and corporations to make undisclosed donations to political parties.

The government calculates that these changes will benefit the coalition in two ways. First, it calculates that the majority of those who will be affected and indeed disenfranchised by the enrolment provisions of the act will be potential Labor voters. Given what we know about the demographic patterns of voting in Australia, it is probably correct in that assumption, although I think the National Party may be unpleasantly surprised at the effect of these changes on country people, especially in remote areas. Second, the government knows that the donation disclosure provisions will greatly benefit the Liberal Party partly because it is a party which attracts the majority of its donations from corporations and high-wealth individuals and partly because, as the party in power, it will be the preferred option for those seeking political influence and favours through undisclosed donations.

These changes represent the reversal of more than 150 years of democratic progress in Australia, progress towards a more democratic, inclusive and transparent electoral system. Australia has always been an innovator, indeed a world leader, in electoral reform and democratic processes. As a result Australia has one of the most open electoral systems in the world, which has the highest reputation for integrity and transparency. Now, for the first time in memory, an Australian government is going to wind back some of these features of our electoral system for no good reason other than for short-term partisan advantage. The government is going to do these things on the basis of allegedly preventing electoral fraud, as the current chair suggested before. The government knows quite well that the inquiry that the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters conducted last year, like every other inquiry the committee has conducted, found no evidence whatever that electoral fraud is a problem in Australia.

The committee travelled all over Australia. We heard witnesses with all political views, as well as expert opinions from party officials, the Electoral Commission and academia. Government members of the committee had every opportunity to put evidence of serious electoral fraud or malpractice before the committee. No witness or submission to the inquiry produced evidence of fraudulent enrolment. There is not any evidence that fraudulent enrolment exists on any measurable scale or any evidence that it has affected the result in any specific seat, let alone that it has influenced the result of any federal election. Government members of the committee themselves had to concede that there is no serious problem of electoral fraud in Australia. The Australian Electoral Commission has repeatedly made public statements about the integrity of the electoral roll and the electoral system generally. An AEC Electoral Backgrounder of October 2001 said:

It has been concluded by every parliamentary and judicial inquiry into the conduct of federal elections, since the AEC was established as an independent statutory authority in 1984, that there has been no widespread or organised attempt to defraud the electoral system ... and that the level of fraudulent enrolment and voting is not sufficient to have overturned the result in any Division in Australia.

This is from our independent statutory authority, the AEC. A leading Australian authority on the electoral system, Professor Brian Costar of Swinburne University, wrote in the Canberra Times last December:

If there is a fault in the current Australian electoral procedures it is not rampant enrolment fraud but the very real perception of secretive influence-peddling produced by the excessively free flow of political money.

This bill does nothing to tackle that problem; indeed, it seeks to increase the flow of political donations. Instead the government uses the red herring of electoral reform to disguise its real political agenda, which is its own electoral self-interest. At an earlier time, Professor Costar said of the report:

If Federal Parliament adopts some of its key recommendations, the right to vote will be significantly restricted, thereby diminishing Australia’s well-earned reputation as a world leader in democratic practice.

Indeed, we are proceeding down that line with this legislation. Emeritus Professor Colin Hughes, a highly respected former Australian Electoral Commissioner, wrote in the Independent Weekly last November:

The thorough review of the electoral roll conducted in 2002 by the Australian National Audit Office concluded that “overall, the Australian electoral roll is one of high integrity, and can be relied on for electoral purposes”. There are adequate safeguards in the current electoral laws and procedures to deal with any future attempts at fraud without stripping the vote from hundreds of thousands of citizens.

Malcolm Mackerras, who has often supported the government when it has been justified in various electoral matters and during various elections, in commentary said that if the recommendations of the report now embodied in this legislation were pursued they would be ‘a relentless pursuit of the electoral interests of the Liberal Party’.

It is a pity that the government does not listen to people like this who actually know something about the workings of the electoral system. It is interesting that both the quotes from those experts are on the Notice Paper as a result of a question that I put down on 9 November 2005 and that I had to ask the Speaker today to ask the Special Minister of State to provide some answers to the very serious allegations of Professor Hughes, Professor Costar and Malcolm Mackerras. Of course, there has been no answer from the government before this legislation came up. That is most significant. I bet it will be produced in the next few days when this bill is passed with the government’s automatic majority here and in the Senate. It is a pity the government does not listen to people like this, though, rather than the ideologues in its own ranks and some of the Liberal Party machine men who had a hand in drafting this extreme legislation.

The first section of the bill I want to look at is the tougher identity requirements. The bill proposes that all claims for enrolment and transfer of enrolment will be subject to new proof of identity requirements. Anyone enrolling to vote or updating their enrolment will have to provide their drivers licence number or, if they do not have a drivers licence, an identity document such as a birth certificate or a passport, the authenticity of which must be attested to by an enrolled elector in a prescribed class. If they do not have a drivers licence or suitable identity documents, they must produce statements from two enrolled electors who have known the elector for more than one month, and these witnesses must themselves provide a drivers licence or identity document.

It is astonishing that the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration, Dr Sharman Stone, in introducing this bill in the House last December, provided no justification at all for this proposal. I would have thought that a proposal which will clearly make it more difficult for people to enrol to vote, and to change their enrolment details, needs clear justification from evidence that the current law is inadequate for preventing demonstrated abuse of the electoral system. But the parliamentary secretary produced no such evidence because of course, as we know from the committee’s report, no such evidence exists.

What will be the effect of this provision? It will make the process of enrolment and updating of enrolment more complicated and time consuming. Even though more than 80 per cent of adult Australians have a drivers licence and some of those who do not have a drivers licence will have a passport or a birth certificate, there is a significant group of people who do not possess any of these documents. They will have to go through the two-witness process, and quite inevitably some of them will find it too difficult and will not enrol. The Soviet Union used to call this ‘salami tactics’. Slice by slice, the government is restricting voting rights in Australia.

Many elderly people in particular do not have drivers licences. They will be impacted. It will seriously inconvenience people living in remote areas since the required witnesses cannot be relatives or people who live with the elector. Other groups likely to be disadvantaged are people whose first language is not English, Aboriginal Australians or first-time voters. Even the majority of electors who do have the correct documents will have to go through a more complex process than at present, and some of them will not bother. The result of this will be an increased level of nonenrolment and incorrect enrolment. The knock-on effect of that will be an increased rush of people trying to enrol or to correct their enrolment details when an election is called. These people, of course, will fall victim to the next proposal in the current bill, to close the rolls on the day the House of Representatives writs are issued, which is usually the day after the Prime Minister announces the election; thus the bill will increase the number of people seeking to enrol at the last minute while at the same time making it more difficult for them to do so.

Let me now turn to the section of the bill dealing with the early closure of the rolls. This section will have the effect of disenfranchising anyone who has not enrolled by the time the writs for an election are issued and of potentially disenfranchising all voters who are not enrolled at their correct address by depriving them of an opportunity to correct their enrolment details. Once again, the parliamentary secretary offered no justification for this change, so we must fall back on the arguments used by the government members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in their majority report.

The majority report claimed that the current seven-day period for updating enrolment details ‘presents an opportunity for those who seek to manipulate the roll to do so at a time when little opportunity exists for the AEC to undertake the thorough checking required ensuring roll integrity’. The majority report also stated that, since the law currently required everyone who is eligible to enrol to do so and to keep their enrolment up to date, there should be no need for a ‘period of grace’ to allow people to do what they had done previously.

One shakes one’s head with wonder at how the government won the last few elections since 1996 with all of this apparent concern about the integrity of the electoral roll. It is based on a complete chimera and it is a phoenix of an argument. The government have obviously won the elections and won them fairly and there has been no substantial electoral fraud, as the AEC and various experts have attested to.

The first of the arguments is completely spurious. There is no evidence that any significant number of people seek to manipulate the roll. Who are these people? Why was no evidence about their nefarious activities brought before the committee during its inquiry into the 2004 election? The fact is that these people exist only in the propaganda of the Liberal Party. I happen to believe that the AEC is the body best qualified to inform us of any problems with the integrity of the electoral roll. The AEC has emphatically told the inquiry, as it has told previous inquiries, that there are no such problems which cannot be addressed under the present legislation.

The AEC has also refuted the government’s contention that enrolments during the period of grace are not subjected to proper scrutiny, thus making it easier for mysterious manipulators to wend their wicked way with the electoral roll. In his testimony before the committee, Mr Paul Dacey of the AEC stated categorically that the AEC applies its established procedures during the seven-day period after the writs are issued with the same degree of rigor as it does during a non-election period. It has to work a bit harder obviously because of the enrolments that come in, but we all know the AEC officials in our electorates and we know they do a fine job.

The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters conducted an investigation into the integrity of the electoral roll in 2001. The AEC testified that it had compiled a list of all cases of enrolment fraud for the decade 1990-2001—71 cases in total or about one per one million enrolments. These 71 false enrolments were carried out for reasons not connected with a desire to influence federal election results. In fact, most of them were done in order for disqualified Queenslanders to get back their drivers licences.

Let me remind the House that between 1990 and 2001 there were five federal elections and a referendum, at each of which about 12 million people voted—a total of 72 million votes. The 71 known cases of false enrolment thus amounted to less than one vote per million people. Why would you change legislation, given that trivial level of fraud, and affect hundreds of thousands of people who will try to vote at the next election?

The majority report’s second justification is also quite absurd. Of course people should enrol and keep their enrolments up to date, but it is an inevitable consequence of a system of compulsory enrolment that a significant number of people do not enrol until they need to, which is when an election is called. This is no doubt very naughty of them, but to suggest that these people ought to be punished for their negligence by disenfranchisement is extreme and undemocratic. Professor Hughes rightly calls it ‘excessive legalism’ and argues that it ‘runs counter to the sensible, long-established practice whereby the Australian Electoral Commission does not pursue prosecution for non-enrolment if the neglect is remedied’. This is the ethos that we should be pursuing in a compulsory voting system.

The seven-day period for updating enrolment details was introduced as a result of the problems associated with elections up to 1983 when the roll closed at 5 pm on the day the writ was issued. At the 1983 double dissolution election, approximately 90,000 voters were unable to vote when they arrived at the polling booth on election day. Mr Ivan Freys, an AEC official, who testified before the committee about the 1983 election and the lack of time before the close of the rolls, told the inquiry:

It created a lot of confusion and a lot of provisional votes, and a lot of people go in to vote, find they are not on the roll and just walk out.

I think that is what the government wants. I have frequently quoted figures from the 2004 election, but I will do so again so that the House understands the enormity of what the government is proposing in this bill. At the 2004 election, 284,000 people enrolled or changed their enrolment in the five working days, the period of grace, between the issue of the writs and the closure of the roll. This total included nearly 80,000 Australians, mostly young people, enrolling for the first time. At the same election, 180,000 people cast provisional votes. Over the three-year election cycle, over two million Australians enrolled, re-enrolled or changed their enrolment. All of these people will be disadvantaged by the changes proposed in the majority report and as a result of this legislation and may be disenfranchised. It may only be a small proportion, but in very close seats and in Senate races a small proportion can be decisive. This is in fact what the government wants: just a little more, another slice, shaving off a little more—salami tactics, just as I described it.

Finally, let me turn to the section of the bill dealing with the disclosure of donations, which was well covered by the previous opposition speaker, the member for Prospect. I mentioned the mythical manipulators on the electoral roll. Here, however, we have clear evidence of the real manipulators of the electoral system: those who seek to buy influence through undisclosed donations and party officials who want to make it easier for them to do so. It is in this section of the bill that the hands of the government’s backroom people can be clearly seen. The object of these recommendations is simply to make it easier for corporate donors to give money to the Liberal Party without having to disclose it.

The opposition is firmly opposed to any change to the current disclosure regime. It is very misleading for government members to claim that 90 per cent of donations will still be disclosed if the threshold were raised to $10,000 as this is a measure of total donations, not a measure of the amount of each donation. Under this legislation, donors will be able to exploit the federal structure of the Liberal Party to donate $10,000 to each state and territory division, thus making an undisclosed donation of $80,000. If the current donors in the last round of the AEC disclosure contributed a similar amount to the Liberal Party, then millions of dollars would go undisclosed. Raising the disclosure threshold to $10,000 will allow large amounts of money to flow, without scrutiny, into the coffers of the Liberal Party.

The opposition also opposes the section of the bill which increases the threshold of tax deductibility for political donations from $100 to $1,500. As we said in our minority report, this is ‘an unjustified attempt to transfer private political donations into a taxpayer subsidy’. The reason the Hawke government introduced public funding for political parties was to create a fully transparent system and to prevent attempts to buy influence through undisclosed donations. These provisions will encourage individuals and companies to make undisclosed political contributions at taxpayers’ expense. The public has a right to know the sources of funding for political parties and we are opposed to changes which make it easier for individuals or corporations to make large donations to political parties in secret. These changes proposed in this legislation are a retrograde step for Australian democracy.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are a number of aspects that I wish to cover in my contribution to today’s debate on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005; however, I have no option but to start where the previous speaker, the member for Melbourne Ports, concluded. Not very often have we had such a breathtaking example of the opposition’s hypocrisy as we had in those last few sentences, when the member stood in this House and said that the Australian Labor Party opposes the increase in tax deductibility from $100 to $1,500 and that this is a terribly retrograde step, knowing—I assume he knows and give him credit for knowing—that, in 1997, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters produced a report with a unanimous recommendation that the government do precisely what we propose in this bill.

Let me take the member for Melbourne Ports to paragraph 13.107 on page 338, where the committee noted an earlier unanimous JSCEM recommendation in 1997. That recommendation states:

... that donations to a political party of up to $1500 annually, whether from an individual or a corporation, are tax deductible.

I give the member for Melbourne Ports, who was deputy chair of that committee, credit for knowing the content of this report. However, for the record, let us recall who the members of the committee were back in 1997. From the government, there was the then chair and now minister, Mr Nairn, Senator Abetz, Senator Nick Minchin, Mr Michael Cobb and Mr Graeme McDougall. From the opposition, there was Senator Stephen Conroy, the deputy leader in the Senate—who presumably in 1997 thought this was not a retrograde step but a progressive step and now, according to the member for Melbourne Ports, has changed his mind—Mr Laurie Ferguson and Mr Robert McClelland, both of whom are on the front bench of the opposition and presumably were part of the shadow cabinet decision to oppose precisely what they supported in 1997. You will never get such a clear-cut case of the hypocrisy of those opposite when it comes to electoral matters. That hypocrisy runs through all the arguments that have been put forward by those opposite in this debate and in our committee hearings.

It is the case that we reached agreement on many matters within the report and—although you would not know it from this debate—that the opposition said they supported many matters in this bill. However, to hypocritically claim that something is retrograde when the party membership of the opposition supported it nine or 10 years ago just says so much about the approach of those opposite. I say to the members of the public and to those following this debate that this is the best illustration of how the Labor Party and the opposition cannot be believed in their arguments on this bill. We are told that it is retrograde to try and improve the integrity of the electoral roll; to seek to have identification requirements, which the Australian public have become used to having in so many respects; to seek to have a system where people who enrol and re-enrol have to prove they are who they say they are; and to try to have an electoral roll that is up to date at all times.

The time available to me does not permit me to address all of the issues that have arisen in today’s debate, but it does allow me to address some of the main ones. The first issue, which I have already addressed, speaks volumes. As previous speakers have said, a good deal of this bill stems from the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. That committee spent a year working very hard to produce its report and its 56 recommendations; it did so with the aim of reporting within a year of the last federal election so that the government and the parliament would have time to consider detailed changes of the type we are debating today and, if minded, to implement those changes in good time before the next election.

It is the case that Australia—I have said this before; I said it last October in my tabling speech on the report—has a better than good electoral system, but that does not mean that we cannot do better. That does not mean that we should not seek continually to improve it. That does not mean that it is not open to abuse. That does not mean that abuse has not occurred—and, if the member for Melbourne Ports and those opposite have forgotten, I suggest they consult the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party. If they had done so just a few years back, they would have been consulting some of those members in jail. The member for Melbourne Ports also pointed out that Australia has led the world in electoral reform and he is right about that. However, that is precisely why we should never shy away from improving our electoral system, which is precisely what this bill seeks to do. It seeks to improve the integrity of our Electoral Act—and today I want to address in detail issues relating to that.

Before I do that can I point out that, while some of the recommendations that our committee made were made for the first time, many of them have been made over a number of years—back to 1996. I pay tribute to those committees and to the chairs of those committees for their work, which we picked up. I point out for the benefit of the House the longstanding debate that this parliament has had, both through its committee processes and through those reports. That in itself is another very good argument that the claims of rushing through changes—many of which have been mooted for 10 years—also fall flat.

I would like to firstly address the issue of the closing of the rolls. As previous speakers have pointed out, the bill proposes that the electoral rolls close at 8 pm on the third working day after the issue of the writs for an election, with some minor exceptions, which have been addressed by previous speakers. This is a much-needed measure. In fact, it needs to be pointed out that this measure does not go as far as the majority on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters sought to go. In reality, those three days would be four or five, because the issue of the writs very rarely happens on the day the election is announced. As we reported for the majority, the current seven-day period is an encouragement for those who should be on the electoral roll not to come onto the electoral roll and for those who are on the electoral roll not to keep their details up to date.

What those opposite do not mention is the contradictory nature of our electoral law. Many people support compulsory voting. I know those opposite vigorously support compulsory voting. We had some decent discussions about that issue. But, hand in hand with compulsory voting, no matter what your view, goes compulsory enrolment. We have a law that says that, if you are eligible to vote, you must be on the electoral roll and your details must be accurate. We have a contradictory law that effectively says that, if you would like to ignore the first law and not have your details up to date or be on the electoral roll, you can do so in the seven days after the election writs have been issued.

Our point is that that is too long a period of time. The best evidence for this is that the number of people seeking to do this is growing by 50,000 every election. Would it not be better to encourage people to keep their details up to date and to encourage those who turn 18 to go onto the electoral roll? Obviously, the system has not been working. It is not too much to ask. There is this debate as though filling out a form is so difficult, that it is a massive burden. You cannot turn 18 without filling out forms—to get a drivers licence, to get a bank account, to get all sorts of identification. You cannot move house or change electorate without changing the details of your rates and your utility bills. It is not too much to ask that, at that time, people change their electoral details.

The Australian electoral roll is also used for all sorts of other elections that occur throughout the three-year period. There has been this false and breathless litany of claims that this will disenfranchise voters.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Danby interjecting

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I urge the member for Melbourne Ports not to react sensitively to the fact that his hypocrisy on the $1,500 tax issue has been exposed.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Danby interjecting

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, we do not need to hear his excuses now. He will have plenty of opportunity to explain why some of his frontbench have a different view from his. We will look forward to that on another day; there will be plenty of time for that.

We have this situation where it is claimed that people will be disenfranchised. That is utter bunkum. Disenfranchisement occurs when someone is prevented from having a voting entitlement. Everyone in Australia has the same voting entitlement. To claim that if somebody does not keep their enrolment up to date they are somehow disenfranchised, by their own voluntary action, is utterly ridiculous.

Another measure I would like to briefly mention is the requirement for identification for those enrolling and re-enrolling. The Australian Labor Party would have you believe that it is a retrograde step to require simple forms of identification in a timely manner. There are a range of forms of identification. I will not go through all of those now, but the drivers licence number is the simplest one. Failing that, there is a list a page long of alternative forms of identification, from the Medicare card right through a whole range of other forms of identification. But, somehow, this is a retrograde step as well. As I think the now minister famously said when he was chair of the committee, to get a video in Australia you must provide more identification than you need to provide to get onto the electoral roll. The Australian public will view this as a sensible measure, and they will wonder why it has not been a requirement all along.

Other aspects of this bill that have received mention by those opposite include, obviously, the change in disclosure and also good measures on party registration, which, unless the situation has changed, I understand have bipartisan support. Let me just deal quickly with disclosure. From memory, the disclosure threshold was originally set at $1,000 in 1984 and raised to $1,500 in 1991. The government are proposing an increase to amounts above $10,000. We believe that is more in line with 2006 standards, and it is in line with thresholds in the UK and New Zealand.

I will quickly address the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition and those opposite on the issue of disclosure. Because the $1,500 threshold for disclosure has not increased since 1991, it has been effectively reduced in real terms. But at the National Press Club, the Leader of the Opposition said that, if he were to win government, he would change the threshold back to $1,500. The obvious hypocrisy of this statement is that he is happy to have an amount fixed in stone and not even to have incremental increases.

If the Leader of the Opposition is true to his word, and I know that the Leader of the Opposition values his word, by saying that he opposes the change from $1,500 to amounts above $10,000 and that, if he has his way, he will change that amount back to $1,500—that is my understanding; and it is his right—the Australian Labor Party will continue to declare amounts above $1,500. You can declare any amount. You can voluntarily declare $500. So I welcome the fact that, if this bill is passed, the opposition will declare all amounts between $1,500 and $10,000. That is their policy. They would not be so hypocritical as to run to the next election not declaring amounts between $1,500 and $10,000. That would be utterly hypocritical. In a voluntary way, the Australian Labor Party—and we welcome this fact—will declare all amounts between $1,500 and $10,000. I am sure that their state secretaries and federal secretary have noted that, but I am not so sure that they will be as enthusiastic about it as those opposite—and we note that.

In the few minutes left to me in this debate I want to address one issue that is not in the bill. It is an issue that had the unanimous support of the committee, and I urge the government to act on it in the future—that is, electronic voting for the blind. In a bipartisan way, the committee spent a considerable amount of time on it. At present, the sight-impaired cannot cast a ballot without the assistance of either a family member or a member of the AEC—that is, they cannot cast a secret ballot. Technology enables this to be overcome.

The committee reported back in October that electronic voting for the blind and the sight impaired was now possible and safe and that there ought to be a trial of it in every federal electorate at the next election. I would like to see that pursued. We do not, as some people have reported, see this as a precursor to a general move to electronic voting, but we do think that it is long overdue and that it ought to be considered and introduced on a trial basis before the next election.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we all appreciate, every time we rise in this House we exercise, as I am doing now, a democratic right on behalf of the constituents who have elected us. Those same constituents exercise their right to have us speak or not to speak on their behalf every election. But I contend that these simple, vital democratic rights are increasingly being restricted by a hungry, arrogant and elitist government—the Howard government. The latest threats to these rights come in the form of the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005, which is currently before the House for debate.

The Howard government is making it harder by virtue of the changes embodied in this amendment bill for people to vote and, at the same time, raising the bar on political donations—the thin edge of the wedge for a healthy democratic society. That is exceptionally important, because at the heart of the legislation before the House is the creeping, ugly Americanisation of this country under the Howard government. The unquestioning, fawning approach of this government in its relations with the United States, I contend, is breathtaking. Yet decent, hardworking Australians do not want to be another America—for example, just question them on their attitude to health care and the Americanisation of the Australian health care system.

Ordinary Australians take pride in those things that set Australians and Americans apart. One of those key differences is at the heart of the debate this evening—that is, our politicians do not need millions upon millions of dollars to be able to access political office in this country, and I am thankful for that. Alternatively, in the United States, where television rules and political advertising campaigns determine political fortunes, one 30-second ad can cost millions of dollars. The 2004 US election was the first billion-dollar election campaign. Between them, George Bush and John Kerry raised more than $689 million, while more than $330 million was collected through surrogates and allies. This was double the previous record set in the United States for the 2000 electoral contest for presidential office. The effect is a system dominated by the elite for the elite. This is not representative democracy in the way that the founding fathers envisaged.

For years the United States system has been plagued by poor disclosure of campaign donations, allowing millions of dollars to be funnelled through the main parties in a perversion of democratic values and objectives. We need only look at the recent case in the United States of Jack Abramoff, the man dubbed the ‘superlobbyist’ of the Republican Party, to see how our democratic future could be corrupted by secret bagmen—which would be the end result of the changes proposed by the Howard government this evening. Interestingly, some 20 members of the US congress are implicated in one of the biggest political corruption scandals in years. Abramoff used bribes, including campaign contributions and largesse, to influence legislators.

We have been lucky in Australia in that, historically, we have not had that approach to the political system at a local, state or federal level. But the ramifications of this system are far wider than this group suggests. The direct link between fundraising and elections is crystal clear from the results of the congressional elections in 2004. Of the 435 who were elected, only seven incumbents lost to challengers. To get elected, most of the winners spent five times as much as their rivals. In the last four congressional elections, 98 per cent of the incumbents who ran for re-election won—and they won handsomely. Once elected—and this will be the real challenge for all of us if the bill before the House is approved—the incumbents continued to build their election booty. The incumbents in this year’s House and Senate elections already have $400 million which, according to the non-profit, nonpartisan organisation FairVote, is growing at triple the rate of recent campaigns.

US political scientist Ross Baker warns that the US system ‘more nearly resembles hereditary entitlement than competitive democracy’. The American Political Science Association—and this is exceptionally important—has serious concerns. It says:

Even the most optimistic observer would concede that the American system, with politicians’ reliance on private money to fund their campaigns, creates the potential for influence peddling.

But not only the observers are concerned; American politicians themselves are warning about the corruption of the system—and rightly so—and their warnings ought to be heard in the corridors of the Australian parliament. Senator Robert Byrd put it this way:

The incessant money chase that currently permeates every crevice of our political system is like an unending circular marathon … and it is a race that sends a clear message to people that it is money, money, money—not ideas, not principles, but money—that reigns supreme in American politics. The way to gain access on Capitol Hill, the way to get the attention of members of this body, is through money.

That effectively means that under the American system—and this is the challenge for the House this evening—money opens doors, money means influence and money influences legislative outcomes. We as a nation have to be very careful to avoid such a result.

Compounding the problem is the massive amount of time that US politicians put into fundraising. US politicians are no longer concerned about ideas, principles and debate; they are on a continuous round of fundraising efforts. It reminds me of some reports in today’s media about budget evening for the government. Tonight there will be continuous fundraising from room to room and corridor to corridor. It has started in Australia, and this bill will only make it worse. This evening, in this very House, there will be a clear example of what we have to be very careful about with respect to where we are going to end up as a result of the potential amendments embodied in this bill.

We should not forget that, when you are devoting yourself not to your core job of arguing about what is right but to raising money, you are neglecting your electorate and your constituents. We are elected to represent our constituents’ views, to attend to their local concerns and to argue for what is in the national interest. That is why former US senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum—now co-chair, with Walter Mondale, of a campaign finance reform group mobilised by former US President Clinton—said:

Here we are forced to raise money all the time … We don’t sit down and talk to each other very much anymore. We don’t have time. I just don’t know how people find time to think or reflect.

That says it all. It is important to take note of the views of these seasoned US politicians because they are the ones experiencing the problems posed by the poor disclosure of political donations and the impact that unaccountable flows of money have on corrupting a political system. We should be very careful about not corrupting the Australian political system. I say that because Australian politicians, unlike their US counterparts, are not dependent today on extraordinary sums of money to participate in our political system. We ought to be exceptionally proud of that. It means an ordinary person can get elected to a local council, a state or territory parliament or the Australian House of Representatives or Senate. I am proud of that. It means anyone can stand for office.

But I would rigorously argue that this is now threatened by the creeping Americanisation of our electoral system so openly embraced by the Howard government. The dangers of increasingly unaccountable flows of money are clear from the US experience: a race for ever greater funds, incumbents with so much money that they can keep out challengers, and politicians who are so busy raising funds that they do not have time to do their real job of helping their electorates and creating good, strong policies—to actually do the job for which the electors elected them. It is therefore ironic that, in speaking on this issue last year, the then Special Minister of State, Senator Abetz used the following quote from Ronald Reagan to advocate for this bill:

... democracy is not a fragile flower. Still, it needs cultivating.

I know what Senator Abetz wants to cultivate. He wants to cultivate sizeable and unaccounted for donations to political parties in Australia. I simply say in response to that statement by Senator Abetz that in America democracy is becoming fragile by the day. The consensus is that these vast sums of money are corrupting the system, and everything points to it. In light of the American experience and existing concerns about the transparency of our system, how is it even conceivable that the government of the day could propose increasing the financial threshold for nondisclosure of political donations? I actually think the current threshold is more than generous. Under this bill, and this is exceptionally important, no disclosure at all will be required for political donations up to $10,000. This is nearly seven times the current threshold of $1,500—a very generous threshold. There is no justification for increasing that threshold to $10,000. Whether we like it or not, $10,000 can very heavily influence a particular view of a politician elected to this House in a tight political situation and is the massive amount of money which the government now proposes be the very generous threshold for nondisclosure of political donations.

The government will also increase the level of tax deductible contributions to political parties or independent candidates from $100 to $1,500. I simply say this is double dipping. Political funding, which was first brought in in New South Wales and spread to the Australian parliament and many state and territory parliaments, was for the purposes of assisting the political process in Australia. We all know we have very generous entitlements as incumbents: $125,000 per year, for example, just for the purposes of printing material for our electorate, with mobile telephones, computers and postage entitlements rising up to $50,000 to $60,000 per year, all paid for by Australian taxpayers. But it is now proposed that in addition to all these very generous entitlements paid for by Australian taxpayers—from their hard earned dollars, given the sacrifices they make to make an investment in the integrity of the Australian political system—we double dip yet again. The benefits of incumbency are supposedly no longer good enough.

Having been elected in 1996, when the Howard government was first elected, I have seen the dramatic growth in my entitlements. By way of example, I was told on my election in 1996 that the average expenditure on printing of a member of the House of Representatives was $20,000 to $30,000 per year. We now have, and we do not have to account for it other than by meeting guidelines, up to $125,000 per year; yet the government now proposes by way of this bill that we get an even bigger kick as representatives of political parties so that people making donations to us can have tax deductibility increased from $100 to $1,500. It is corruption at its very best ripping off Australian taxpayers yet again with the government saying, ‘Yes, not only do you have to pay for members’ entitlements and for the huge amount of moneys paid to the political parties by way of electoral funding but now you will have to pay even more through tax deductibility on donations.’

I think Australians are entitled to ask: how does this serve us? The effect of this legislation will be to encourage the donation of huge amounts of money without accountability to voters. At the same time, the government is making it harder for voters to get enrolled. It is trying to rob them of their right to vote and their right to take part in the Australian political process. These laws could mean 300,000 Australians are disenfranchised. With one hand the Howard government will be giving the green light to those with money to influence and get their way in this country, to peddle their influence, while on the other hand the government will be taking away from those ordinary Australians their opportunity to even cast a vote. That is the crux of the debate: if you have got money you can peddle influence but if you are an ordinary Australian the government is going to make it harder for you to vote. But, worse still, those that will be most affected will be young people—people we need to get in contact with the political processes—Indigenous Australians and Australians from non-English-speaking backgrounds. The problem is that the Howard government does not believe that their votes are safe. That is what it is really about: how it maximises its vote whilst restricting access to some in the Australian community.

Under these laws the government will close the electoral roll at 8 pm on the day that an election writ is issued, except in two cases. Those are where a person turns 18 years old or where people are granted citizenship between the day on which the writ is issued and polling day. These people will be the only ones to get the right to enrol. People updating their details on the electoral roll will only be given three days to do so. The current laws allow a seven-day grace period for people enrolling to vote or updating their details on the electoral roll. Based on a figure from the last election, this will affect about 280,000 people. These people either enrolled to vote or changed their enrolment in a substantive way in the five working days between the issue of the writ and close of the roll. That is what happened last time with the close of the roll. The government will also require identification when a person is enrolling to vote, when a voter changes their details and with provisional voting.

These changes are based on the government’s argument that they prevent electoral fraud. I simply remind the House of the consensus in Australia that our country’s electoral system is one of great integrity. I agree with that view. The Australian Electoral Commission is an organisation of integrity and it has upheld this consensus. Indeed, it has raised concerns about the impact on nondisclosure of political donations. The Australian National Audit Office reported in 2002 that the electoral roll is one of ‘high integrity’. Even the experts are therefore baffled by the necessity for these laws. As Professor Brian Costar has argued:

If there is a fault in the current Australian electoral procedures it is not in rampant enrolment fraud but the very real perception of secretive influence peddling produced by the excessively free flow of political money.

And unlike the American system, where a constitution and bill of rights is intended to act as a protection on individual rights, the Australian system only provides limited access to judicial protection in electoral matters. This makes the bill all the more abhorrent.

The opposition, the Labor Party, is particularly concerned about the impact of these changes on young people and their right to exercise a vote. The changes could affect up to 80,000 young Australians. They reflect the fact that the Howard government is out of touch with young Australians. Everybody understands the importance of trying to go out of our way to get people to vote, to actually participate in the Australian political system.

It is about time that the Howard government realised that there is an error in the way it is proceeding with the electoral changes before the House this evening. Young people should be encouraged to participate in the system, not prevented from doing so. Obviously they are very busy and have to go out of their way in a very tough environment with respect to the pressure of work or study. We have to make sure that they are given the right to enrol, to participate in the Australian electoral system.

To add to this long list of negative impacts, we have also recently learnt that the laws will seriously affect the operations of charities and community groups. A Senate inquiry heard recently that the proposed electoral changes could see charities and community groups gagged. Legal advice from the National Roundtable of Nonprofit Organisations said that changes to the definition of electoral matters in the bill would mean that charities and community groups would be unable to make even passing reference to past or present public policy issues. Under the law, such groups could be labelled as partisan political players, scaring away potential private donors and the public. The fact that the government has moved to fix this problem reflects the fact that these laws were simply poorly thought out and drafted in haste.

In concluding, I believe that it is plainly obvious to all in the Australian community, on reflection and examination of this bill, that increasing the threshold for undisclosed political donations is dangerous for any democracy. It can corrupt a system that has been respected throughout the world. At the same time, the concerns these laws pose for the young, the disadvantaged, Indigenous communities, charities and community groups simply far outweigh any perceived benefit claimed by this government. The Howard government should step back. We as a nation have long invested in an electoral system that is respected and regarded as being honest. There is no good reason why the threshold for nondisclosure of political donations should be increased. It is a recipe for corruption and unaccountability, and the Howard government should know better. (Time expired)

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005 contains provisions the cumulative effect of which will undermine the integrity of our electoral system. This government is intent not on improving our electoral system but on partisan political advantage.

The Americans, two elections ago, had Florida and the hanging chads. This government, in this bill, produces early close of rolls for most people—apart from two modest exceptions—and also introduces a proof of identity requirement for provisional voters and for people enrolling or updating. I regard those as the equivalent of the hanging chad provisions. They are being put into our Electoral Act. They are designed to knock out potential electors—not to enfranchise them but to disenfranchise them, as was the case with the hanging chads in Florida. In Florida, the system resulted in a president being elected—as was subsequently found—with a minority of votes. When the votes were subsequently counted, it was found that he was in a minority.

I want to correct something that the member for Casey said when he impugned the member for Melbourne Ports in relation to provisions contained in the 1997 Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report on funding. Sure, there was a unanimous recommendation; but it was never the policy of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party to increase thresholds. Members on parliamentary committees do not bind the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party. The Federal Parliamentary Labor Party rejected the particular recommendations of the committee and pushed for maintaining existing threshold levels. That is why we have the legislation before us today. Until the government got control of the Senate, we managed to do that.

The member for Batman referred to the fundraising events that are going on this evening—how this parliament is being used to fill the coffers of the Liberal Party and its members through fundraising events coinciding with the—

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Minister for Workforce Participation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What—you want to dispute that, do you? Go into the corridors.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Minister for Workforce Participation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to remind the honourable member that it is inappropriate to make allegations about fundraising activities which are clearly untrue in the context of this debate, which is about something entirely different. He should stick to the issues.

Harry Quick (Franklin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There is no point of order.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is absolutely imperative that it is linked to this debate, because in this legislation we are increasing the threshold for disclosure levels. The minister at the table should know what we are actually debating. Part of it is about an increase in thresholds. That will mean that a lot of that fundraising activity that is occurring, where parliament is being used by the Liberal Party as a major fundraiser, will not be disclosed under the increased thresholds. They will not be required to do that. The thresholds will be increased to $10,000. The $1,000 a head on a minister’s table and $600 a head on a backbencher’s table will all be hidden. We will have the best politicians that money can buy, but we are not going to be able to see the money that buys them. We are not going to have transparency and openness.

That is where there is a second leg in this legislation, which I regard as putrid legislation. As the member for Batman pointed out, political fundraising is occurring that supplements public funding and entitlements. This is the third level. I call it the invisible money.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s triple dipping, not double dipping.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is triple dipping. That needs to be pointed out. The minister at the table should not be so precious. She needs to just go out into the corridors, the Mural Hall and the Main Committee area and she will see what is happening. I seek leave to continue my remarks when the debate is resumed.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.