Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

A very wise man once said, 'Politicians should wear sponsor jackets like NASCAR drivers, then we know who owns them.' That very wise person was the late Robin Williams and I share his words. I've become increasingly concerned about the state of our Australian democracy, about the decreasing level of transparency and accountability of our political leadership. Abound in our media are disturbing stories of slowly fragmenting democracy, and democracy is a very fragile thing. Stories of political influence being traded and policy favours being procured, stories of foreign influence gaining purchase within our political landscape, stories of Aldi bags full of money changing hands to evade the gaze of the public interest—I've always said that if you want to see whose vested interests are being championed then follow the money.

This leads me to mention the gambling industry, one that we do absolutely nothing about in this place. Shocking allegations of money laundering were made against Crown Casino. Nothing was said in this place. I might remind the House that, just having a look at the Australian Electoral Commission website, I'm sure many in Australia were not surprised that over the last four years of disclosures around a million dollars were handed in donations just from Crown Casino to both of the major parties.

What can we conclude about water deals where we pay almost twice the recommended rate? Why is it that our government is merely disappointed that Westpac has turned a blind eye to money-laundering crimes that number in the millions? It is a matter for the bank, not a matter for us to deal with in here, is what we were told.

Right now a family of five can donate $60,000 to a political party and nobody in Australia would be any the wiser. They could donate $12,000 each, $60,000. Nobody would know. Well, I think they should know. This bill seeks to make it easier to follow the money that politicians and their parties receive. If enacted, the bill would lower the political donation disclosure threshold from $13,800 to $1,000 and remove the indexation of that threshold.

I'm one of the few members in this place who relies on community and microdonations to fund their political campaigns. I refuse to take donations from big unions or from big business. I've always maintained that if you're donating in the thousands of dollars rather than the tens or hundreds, or even a bit of coin, then the public has the right to determine for themselves whether those donations are influencing the views and the political positions of the recipient candidate or party.

This bill acts to complement my earlier private member's bill in this place—that is, the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Real Time Disclosure of Donations) Bill 2019, which calls for a maximum of a five-day lag. The disclosure of political donations is currently being considered in an inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.

Together, these bills are based upon the belief that greater transparency in our democracy will lead to greater democratic accountability. The public should know whether our representative democracy is representative of the demos, the people, or whether it's representative of vested interests. Trust in our democracy is at an all-time low, and I'm sure we all feel that. These two pieces of legislation are part of a solution to turn that trust around. We need to restore the compact between the government and those for whom the government exists to serve, those for whom this parliament exists to serve.

The Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Lowering the Donation Disclosure Threshold) Bill 2019 gives the Australian people the right to follow the money. I urge all members in this place to give the bill serious consideration and return more to the demos, the people. That is why we are here.

I commend this bill to the House. Mr Deputy Speaker, I would ask if my remaining time could be given to the member for Indi, who is seconding the bill. Thank you.

Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I'm pleased to support this bill moved by the member for Mayo. Political, parliamentary and public service integrity is fundamental to the strength of Australian democracy. The transparency of campaign financing is key to its vitality. Capping donations at a modest limit is a powerful way of ensuring integrity.

The loss of political integrity concerns many people—I hear it consistently. It was an issue raised often with me in the 2019 federal campaign and since my election as member for Indi. It's an aspiration at the heart of a call from Transparency International Australia for a robust federal integrity commission, one which has the support of a majority of Australians. It's one also supported by more than 32 former senior judges and the Accountability Round Table.

Democracy 2025 Report No. 5, published in September, shows politicians are more satisfied than voters with our democratic system. It shows that public trust in government and Australian democracy is declining and that people expect politicians to be properly accountable for their conduct in public office. But I also found fascinating that 75 per cent of politicians and citizens actually agree that the amount of money political parties and candidates can spend on election campaigning and how much they can accept from donors should be limited. Yet the Commonwealth is still to enact this aspiration.

The parliaments of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland have set a disclosure threshold on political donations at $1,000. Victoria has a cap, but there is no limit on donations to federal campaigns. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia require near real-time disclosure of donations, yet the Commonwealth requires disclosure just once a year and then seven months after the reporting period has ended. There are caps on expenditure in some jurisdictions, but not for those of us here. The New South Wales Electoral Commission actively pursues breaches, yet the Australian Electoral Commission rarely employs its coercive powers, as the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee heard in 2017. So we see the campaign finance laws diverge between jurisdictions, but it should also concern us that they do so here too within the Electoral Act determined by the parliament.

I acknowledge that the member for Melbourne has been calling for campaign donations to be capped at $1,000 for some time, but it remains that the Electoral Act means that I and the members for Clark and Warringah are obliged to do things which party members are not. There are rules that are the same for 148 members but are quite different for the three of us, and I commend the member for Mayo for bringing to the attention of the House the issue of political donations.

There are some things that we share. We are all required to lodge a candidate return within 15 weeks of an election, to declare the total of donations and the identity of people or organisations giving to individual campaigns more than $13,800—the disclosure set by the parliament—to disclose gifts in kind, such as contributions of professional skills, valued at more than $13,800, and to disclose the sum of election expenditure. Yet, when the AEC published an election return on 4 November, candidate disclosures on the transparency register for the Indi electorate, for example, showed no donations, no donors and no expenditure for any candidate except me, the Independent, and one other.

Voters deserve to know how candidates are funded and who funds them, but the law today demands different levels of campaign funding transparency from the members for Clark, Indi and Warringah compared with that of the party candidates. In Indi, a personal business donating cash in kind or property to a party candidate can make the gift to the party's Indi branch. But Indi voters won't find out about this—the law allows that gift to be reported by the party's divisional organisation. The AEC, in fact, directs the party's candidates in Indi, and in every other electorate, to lodge a nil return. This means political parties contesting elections are not obliged to show how much money was given, raised or spent in each electorate. These gifts and spending, instead, go into the party's divisional stew and the only ingredients you can identify—when it's served many months later, cold and unappealing, as the parties probably want it to be—are donations of more than $13,800.

Voters should not be blinded by the law to what candidates raise and what they spend. We need comprehensive, robust reform of the system of federal political donations and disclosure. This bill improves transparency, but there's so much more to be done, and when it is the law it should be the same for all.

Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order for the next sitting day.