Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters I present the second interim report, incorporating dissenting reports, on the inquiry into the conduct of the 2016 federal election: foreign donations. I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.

In accordance with standing order 39(e) the report was made a Parliamentary Paper.

by leave—There is no more pressing task before this parliament than raising the standards and the standing of politics. Unless and until we can rebuild public confidence in the strength of our democratic institutions we will be unable to successfully prosecute the arguments we need to have about the direction of this country. It should be in everyone's interests that Australian politics is a genuine contest of ideas, testing alternative ways and means to secure our prosperity and wellbeing. A critical part of this challenge must be to deal with the influence, real and perceived, of money on politics. Donations reform is overdue. This report relates to one element of this, but a particularly important one: foreign donations. Now, around the world, we see increasing and disturbing evidence of state actors as well as corporate interests seeking to influence political outcomes in other countries. This is something members of this parliament must have regard to and is of course a serious matter that executive governments should consider.

Before I turn to my comments to the substance of this interim report, I should acknowledge the work of the chair of this committee, Senator Reynolds, who did a very good job through the hearings of managing what were complicated issues and differing views. I also acknowledge, of course, the work of the committee secretariat and its AEC advisers. Under challenging circumstances, they did very important work supporting the committee. This is of course an interim inquiry that involved not just a majority report but three dissenting reports. That is a testament to some of the challenges the members and senators put to those working with and for us.

In Australia there are significant constitutional obstacles to achieving donations reform. There are also complex practical and philosophical questions to be examined. Some of these things take time, but there are also some simple propositions that can and should be dealt with now. For nearly 10 years Labor has made the case for prohibiting foreign donations to registered political parties. How we have proposed to do this is to conduct extensive examinations in the hearings conducted in the course of preparing this interim report. No objection was advanced, legal or practical, to this approach, outlined in the bill presented some weeks ago by the Leader of the Opposition, looking to ban donations of foreign property.

So, let's get on with this and get back to work, through this committee process, on these more complex questions. Labor members have supported a dissenting report, having done our best to reach consensus, and we acknowledge the granting of additional time to this committee to try to reach such a consensus. We have done so because there remain four substantial failings in the report supported by coalition members. First and fundamentally, the report does not attempt to define a foreign donation in terms of its recommendations. This is a profound failing. It is true that the requirements of our Constitution pose challenges for lawmakers, but there is a way through. Labor's approach—banning donations of foreign property—has been tested, and the evidence has supported this as a practical way forward. No alternative has been seriously proposed. The government's failure to grapple with this question of what constitutes a foreign donation can be seen as making a mockery of this inquiry. This has been further emphasised by a very late submission on behalf of the Nationals that sought to water down this recommendation further.

Second, coalition members want dual citizens exempted from any ban. This is despite there being no reference to this issue in the body of the report or indeed in evidence to the committee, which raises the question: what is the report of such a recommendation? This is a matter that should be addressed.

Third, the report of government members goes beyond the committee's reference as well as the evidence before us in recommending that any prohibition apply to pretty much anyone or any organisation that has views on matters of public policy in Australia. This is an approach that would constrain many not-for-profit organisations in their vital advocacy work, damaging civil society, damaging our democracy.

Finally, it is said in recommendations by the majority that foreign funds being channelled through organisations that are not regulated or not presently regulated under the Commonwealth Electoral Act is a problem that must be attended to. There is little evidence before the committee in support of this. But that perhaps misses the point—that is, that there are other mechanisms that are available and that are within the purview of this committee's work that could and should be advanced to attend to this problem, such as regulating against donations splitting, putting in place lower disclosure limits and, of course, real-time disclosure, the approach Labor has advocated with provisions first put before this parliament almost a decade ago.

So, there is a bill before this parliament that would ban foreign donations to political parties as well as attend to many of the concerns voiced by those who support the majority report of this committee. This bill deserves to be debated and the substantive provisions adopted as soon as practicable, especially in circumstances in which no argument has been advanced against them. If this government is serious about cleaning up politics, it has no excuse not to act, and this committee must get on with its vital work. All of us on the committee must redouble our efforts to advance Australia's interests in the quality of our democratic processes.