Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Political Campaigners) Bill 2021. Labor is opposing this bill and the attack on our democracy and our civil society that it represents. Right now Australians need and deserve a government that will stand up for our democracy in all its dimensions, a government unafraid of criticism, a government that listens instead of always seeking to shut down dissenting or even just different voices. Australians can see that this means an Albanese Labor government, because only a Labor government will defend all the fundamental pillars of our democracy, including the right of ordinary Australians to come together to share their perspectives and aspirations for our future, to speak up for the voiceless, to advocate for change.

Mr Morrison, the current Prime Minister, likes his line about not telling people what to do. Of course, he listens much more attentively to focus groups than the voices of ordinary Australians. If his genuine belief is that government shouldn't be telling people what to do, he will be joining me and my Labor colleagues in voting against this bill, because that is exactly what it will do. This is yet another repressive piece of legislation telling people what they can't do—rather, telling some people what they can't do. Make no mistake: this is part of the Prime Minister's DNA. When it matters he has led a don't-do government. Whenever Australians have needed him to get to work on their behalf, he's been nowhere to be seen or has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into acting, always too little, always too late. Australians know that the leader of our national government had two jobs last year. He failed on both, and the consequences of that are still being felt, in particular in my home town of Melbourne, right now.

But these things are in the national interest. It is, of course, a very different story when it comes to his personal political interests, because Mr Morrison, the Prime Minister, will do anything to win an election, regardless of the cost. That is what this bill tells us—and the other changes he is planning to make to our electoral laws on the very eve of an election, the changes he is planning to make to how our democracy operates.

I also want to mention the changes he won't be making. More than 1,000 days after he promised Australians a national integrity commission, legislation for this is yet to appear. After so many scandals which have beset the government he leads—the car park rorts, the sports rorts, the member for Pearce's blind trust—Australians need and deserve a real anti-corruption commission at the national level to defend the integrity of our democratic institutions. What Australians don't need is desperate cynicism from our Prime Minister, a person who will do whatever it takes to cling to power, ripping up the electoral rule book as he goes. Whether it's promoting US-style voter suppression laws or trying to stop charities speaking up for vulnerable Australians on the issues that matter to their supporters and so many across our communities, he will do whatever he thinks will help him win. It's telling, though, that this doesn't include offering Australians a positive vision for our country or, indeed, defending the record of this tired, dysfunctional government into its ninth year.

Our democracy is something Australians are rightly proud of, but it cannot be taken for granted, especially now. Through the pandemic, we saw a welcome increase in Australians' attitude to government and to political institutions, with trust increasing for the first time in a long time as they saw what could be done when people put their minds to it, particularly in the states and territories that took the action needed to be taken to keep communities safe.

This increase in trust, though, is being squandered. Indeed, it is being undermined across our society when we see dark forces turning to violence. In echoes of the shocking insurrection at the US Capitol building in January, last week gallows and nooses were displayed on the steps of the Victorian parliament. Threats have been made to the lives of elected representatives. Dangerous conspiracy theories are being spread, and this has been met with dog whistling on the part of that person who should have been the first to stand unequivocally against this: Australia's Prime Minister. In another Trumpian echo, the Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, spoke about understanding the frustrations of the people who were standing alongside neo-Nazis and people making threats of violence. And I say this: how hard is it to plainly say that this conduct is unacceptable in a democracy? How hard can it be to set this standard? But our cynic-in-chief couldn't bring himself to speak up for those who work to keep our community safe.

This bill and its companions, which we will be dealing with later this week, are the opposite of what is needed right now. We must come together to reinforce our democratic institutions; lift the standard of politics; show ourselves—all of us in this place—worthy of Australians and of the trust they place in us; and recognise the damage that is being done by this coarsening and cheapening of politics.

If Mr Morrison were serious about electoral integrity and public confidence in our electoral processes, he would do the following: he would support Labor's bill for real-time disclosure of political donations and lowering the disclosure threshold from the current $14,500 to a fixed $1,000 so donations are transparent for all to see before voters cast their ballots; he would reform electoral expenditure laws; he would provide more resources to the Australian Electoral Commission to increase enrolment and voter turnout; he would do something to fight dangerous misinformation and disinformation and to support our trusted and independent public broadcasters, the ABC and the SBS; he would, of course, legislate for a powerful and independent national anticorruption commission so all Australians can have every confidence in what is done in this place and in our Commonwealth bureaucracy; he would stop the relentless pork-barrelling in marginal seats, which is so corrosive of people's trust in government; and he would make laws so people like the member for Pearce can't take secret donations through blind trusts. He would join us, in short, in taking a stand for a politics that is a genuine and respectful contest of ideas, not the crude weaponisation of fears.

I've been talking about the context within which this bill is located, what's been happening to Australia's democracy, and what is proposed to be done about it. There's another context which is important too. For more than eight years, the Morrison-Joyce government and its predecessors have been at war with Australia's charities. First, they attempted to abolish the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, a body respected across the sector. When that failed, they installed as the charity commissioner longtime charity critic Gary Johns, a man who had previously said that poor women were being used as cash cows and that Australia is sucking in too many of the wrong type of immigrant—a person of that calibre. And recently the Morrison-Joyce government have attempted to give the charity commissioner the power to deregister charities because they anticipate a charity might commit a summary offence—merely anticipate. Deregistration could occur merely because a charity promotes an event, so a charity which publicises a street march on its Facebook page could be deregistered if one of the marchers commits a summary offence. So this bill is merely the latest in a consistent pattern of attacks on charities by this government—attacks which have been very effectively highlighted by my friend the member for Fenner, who has done so much work and so much hard listening with those affected, unlike the government, which has consistently tried to exclude charities from the public conversation and restrict their ability to advocate for societal change.

Well, let me be clear: Labor understands the crucial role of civil society organisations in our democracy and their role in advocacy and influencing government policy across all governments. Over the last 18 months, it's been civil society organisations who've been working to address the pre-existing fault lines in our political, social and economic systems that have been exposed and deepened through the effects of COVID-19. Labor is committed to ensure that charities and other not-for-profit organisations are free to advocate on behalf of their cause without fear of being deregistered, defunded or otherwise silenced. But in the last sitting fortnight of this year—perhaps the last sitting fortnight of this parliament—the Morrison-Joyce government are rushing through electoral legislation that has the twin purpose of, on the one hand, silencing the government's critics and, on the other hand, making sure people who may not vote for them can't vote at all.

The voter integrity bill will be debated later this week, and I will have much more to say on that, as will all of my Labor colleagues, I am sure. That bill has been the subject of much focus and debate in the last few weeks and rightfully so, because it is a blatant voter suppression tool. This bill hasn't received the same amount of attention, but it is just as important for the government to pass so it can make sure that the groups who might speak out against government policy can't. That is why we see a dodgy deal with Senator Hanson to introduce her voter ID laws in exchange, it would appear, for her support for this bill—because everything this Prime Minister does is about trying to win the next election. He has identified his narrow path to victory, involving a series of things: the votes of antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists, which is why he fails to denounce them, and tricks like voter suppression through voter ID laws that the AEC itself has said consistently are unnecessary and unwarranted and that respond to a problem that simply does not exist in Australia's democracy. In this case, it involves punishing those charities who might want to tell the truth about Mr Morrison's many failures. The government that won't require the former Attorney-General to tell the parliament who gave him a million dollars will impose onerous disclosure requirements on charities spending $100,000 on campaigns that might highlight the government failures or any other flaws in policies at the national level.

This bill will increase the number of charities and not-for-profits that are required to be registered as political campaigners and, in the process, increase their administrative burden, prevent them from accepting foreign donations and discourage them from engaging in political debate. These are very significant changes. 'Political campaigner' is a new category of political participant that was created in 2018 through the passage and enactment of the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2018. Currently, political campaigners are defined as individuals or organisations that spend at least half a million dollars a year or two-thirds of their annual income on electoral expenditure. Political campaigners have substantial disclosure obligations, reflecting their level of activity and political advocacy. The disclosure obligations for political campaigners are the same as those that apply for registered political parties. Political campaigners, as with parties and candidates, are also prevented from receiving foreign donations—which, of course, helps protect our democracy from foreign interference.

This bill seeks to lower the amount of electoral expenditure that an organisation needs to spend before they fall into this category. The bill lowers that threshold from half a million a year in any of the previous three financial years, or two-thirds of annual income, to $100,000 per year in any of the three previous financial years, or one-third of annual income. By reducing the electoral expenditure threshold to this degree, the political campaigners bill will result in a number of smaller charities, not-for-profits and unions currently registered as third parties, with different and lesser disclosure obligations, being required to register as political campaigners. It doesn't take much to spend $100,000 in politics, as I'm sure a former director of the New South Wales Liberal Party would know, or indeed a former director of the WA Liberals. Only a few full-page newspaper ads on a particular policy issue and a charity whose work is not party politics but is providing services for the needy or advocating for an environmentally sustainable future for our kids suddenly has the same disclosure requirements as political parties.

Organisations like the Wilderness Society, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, the Climate Action Network, Farmers for Climate Action and Greenpeace will be affected by this change—organisations that might have something important to say about this government's failure to deliver on climate policy. It will also capture groups like the Australian Christian Lobby and Christian Schools Australia, and it will capture a number of unions—and we know that this government does not want unions engaged in electoral campaigns! Currently these organisations are registered as third parties, because they spend between $14,500 and half a million on electoral expenditure. They must disclose donations they receive above the $14,500 that are for the purposes of electoral expenditure plus their total electoral expenditure.

In addition to that, charities' income and expenditure are already disclosed to the Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, but now these organisations will be characterised as political campaigners, should this bill be enacted, and will be required to disclose much more detailed information to the AEC—the same detail that a registered political party must provide, including: total receipts; the value of gifts in kind; details of receipts greater than the disclosure threshold, not limited to donations that were for electoral expenditure but would include all donations and receipts; total payments; total debts; details of debts greater than the disclosure threshold; total electoral expenditure; and details of discretionary benefits. This is a massive compliance burden for small charities and not-for-profits. Make no mistake: it will have a chilling effect on political participation, shutting out important perspectives and limiting the contest of ideas, which should be what our political contest and our electoral contest is all about.

It will also mean that all these organisations will be unable to accept donations from foreign sources. Up to now they have been able to receive charitable donations from foreign citizens, providing these are not used for electoral expenditure. Now they won't be able to accept any money at all from anyone overseas. Not only that; they will need to verify every single donation to make sure it's not from a foreign citizen. This will be unworkable for small organisations with volunteer staff. I cast my mind back to when the member for Kooyong was the parliamentary secretary to then Prime Minister Abbott and he talked about 'the bonfire of red tape'. If ever there is evidence that that was simply a bonfire of his vanity, it's a provision like this.

This, coupled with the increased disclosure obligations, will place a huge burden on these smaller organisations, which will force them into making a choice—a choice perhaps not to engage in political activity and not to publicly advocate for the causes they believe in and which so many Australians hold dear and rely on these organisations to speak to on their behalf. This is harmful for our democracy. It will have the effect of removing important perspectives, often of groups that have been marginalised or excluded from the political conversation more broadly.

The current threshold was set in 2018, not that long ago, after Labor and the charity sector fought a long campaign against this government, which wished to silence charities. At that time the Hands Off Our Charities alliance of 44 charities and not-for-profits was formed, coming from a range of sectors—education, social welfare, human rights, animal welfare, the environment, health, climate change, disability rights and philanthropy. Member organisations include Anglicare Australia, Amnesty International Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Council of Social Service, the Climate Council, Community Legal Centres Australia, the Human Rights Law Centre, Oxfam Australia, The Pew Charitable Trusts, UnitingCare Australia and Save the Children, amongst many others. These are organisations that do such important work in our society, but they are constantly under attack through this government. They had to form this alliance to withstand these attacks, which in part began as soon as the Abbott government was elected.

Earlier this year the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters conducted a review of the funding and disclosure reforms of 2018 and looked at whether the current thresholds were adequate. After hearing from Hands Off Our Charities and a number of other submitters, JSCEM recommended no changes to the existing threshold. Indeed, when the concept of political campaigners was first introduced, the government proposed a $100,000 threshold—a move rejected by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which considered the evidence and whose recommendation for the obligations to be proportionate to the levels of expenditure led to the half-a-billion-dollar threshold that currently stands.

In its submission to the inquiry, Hands Off Our Charities said:

Overwhelmingly, evidence in this area of law has been for more transparency of political parties, including reforms to introduce real time disclosure of political donations and to lower the donations disclosure threshold. Nevertheless, the Government has resisted these reforms on the grounds that it is a too high and unnecessary administrative burden for political parties. It is disappointing that the Committee is willing to ask third parties to take a substantial administrative burden for little extra transparency, while not offering support to key transparency reforms overwhelmingly supported by the Australian public.

But the Morrison-Joyce government's not doing any of that. It did not listen to JSCEM and maintain the existing thresholds that JSCEM found were working well—as, indeed, they are. Instead, on the eve of an election, the Morrison-Joyce government is trying to ram this legislation through so that charities and unions that might not agree with this government can't speak out publicly against it or on the issues that concern them in the lead up to the election.

This government has no shame. This government doesn't care about transparency. It doesn't care about a healthy and robust political debate. It doesn't care about democracy. If it did, it would not be attacking our charities and making it harder for people to vote, with Trump-style voter ID laws. If this government cared about democracy, it would be supporting Labor's proposals about lowering the donations threshold and requiring donations to be disclosed within seven days. This simple change would mean that voters would have this information when they go to cast their ballot and not have to wait up to 19 months to find out who is funding political parties, as they do at present. And so I'm moving a second reading amendment to do just that. I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes that the bill's explanatory memorandum states that the amendments are intended to enhance public confidence in Australia's political processes;

(2) notes further that Labor has two bills before the Senate which would actually enhance public confidence in Australia's political processes, by lowering the disclosure threshold from the current $14,500 indexed to inflation to a fixed $1,000 and requiring real time disclosure of political donations; and

(3) calls on the Coalition Government to end its attacks on groups impacted by this change, including charities and instead support Labor's political donations reforms".

If this government cared about democracy, it would be fulfilling its three-year-old promise of establishing a national anticorruption commission that's powerful and independent. But it won't, because it knows that if it does members of this government will be the first to be hauled before it. If this government cared about democracy, it would stop pork-barrelling marginally held seats. But it won't, because this government has proved that it treats public money as if it's Liberal Party money. If this government cared about democracy, it would make laws to stop politicians like the member for Pearce from taking secret donations hidden in a blind trust. But it won't, because this Prime Minister can't or won't afford to lose any of his members.

An Albanese Labor government, on the other hand, will act with integrity and transparency and with the aim of strengthening, not weakening, our democracy. As the shadow minister—soon to be, I hope, the Special Minister of State—Senator Farrell has made clear throughout his time in the role, demonstrating clearly the contrast each and every day, Senator Farrell and Labor will build on the reforms of the Hawke Labor government, the government that first introduced the political donations disclosure regime. We will establish a powerful anticorruption commission operating with the powers of a standing royal commission to investigate and hold to account Commonwealth ministers, parliamentarians, their staff and other Commonwealth public officials. And we will allow charities the space to participate in our democracy without unreasonable burdens, so they can advocate for those who need it the most. Labor is on the side of accountability and transparency in government.

Make no mistake; here we have a don't-do government. They don't do the jobs Australians need done, they don't keep their promises and they love telling Australians what not to do, sometimes what to read and often what not to say. These sittings, and indeed this debate, speak to this. Our nation right now faces some real challenges. Of course, we are presented with some exciting opportunities as the world reopens. But, looking at the Notice Paper here, you can't see any evidence of any interest in this. The priorities of the Morrison government begin and end with the political survival of the Morrison government, and that is perhaps the most damning indictment of this tired, dysfunctional mob. Four bills seeking to amend the Electoral Act are before this House right now, when there isn't one to introduce the long promised and much needed national anticorruption commission. The legislative agenda for this fortnight, perhaps the last sittings of this parliament, is barren when it comes to proposals for substantive policy reform to improve the lives of Australians.

The Morrison government has no regard for the national interest but an obsession with its political interest, with no confidence in its record; hence the determination we see here in this bill to shut out opposing and alternative viewpoints from the political debate. They have no regard for our democratic norms and institutions, nor for a vibrant and robust civil society. That is the desperation and the cynicism of the Morrison government. Australians deserve better, and all Australians deserve their voice to be heard in public affairs. That is why this bill must be rejected.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If ever there were a speech that demonstrated the need for the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Political Campaigners) Bill 2021, it is the member for Scullin's. 'Contest of ideas'—who is he kidding? This is about money. This is about the Labor Party funnelling more money into their campaigns at the cost of Australian democracy. This is about their obscene efforts to ensure that Australians don't know what they've been up to for all these years.

They talk about the concern about unions being involved in campaigns. Let me tell you, Deputy Speaker Vasta—if they can point to it, I will be happy to apologise—is there a single time that a single union, a single union official, a single union leader, has ever asked their members what they want and where they want their money spent? As I recall, in the last election, active union members voted for the coalition 52 per cent to 47 per cent. But I bet not a single union gave a single dollar to the Liberal Party or the National Party or any party that represented the members they claim to represent, because they know that if there were real democracy in the union movement, if there were real democracy in any of these groups, if Australians knew what those over there want to hide, which is how their money is getting spent, they would be appalled and disgusted. That's what this bill will achieve. This bill will finally turn the rock on all the cockroaches lurking in the dark of Australian democracy.

I encourage the member for Scullin and every single member on the other side to keep doing this from now to whenever the election is. Keep telling ordinary men and women of Australia, working men and women of Australia, that they're extremists because they don't believe that the Premier of Victoria should be able to put people under house arrest without any capacity of appeal. Go and tell ordinary Australians, every time they have some concern of overreach by an Australian government of any party anywhere, that they're neo-Nazis. Go and tell ordinary Australians that they're misogynist, sexist and homophobic because they committed the great crime of disagreeing with you. I encourage those opposite to keep this up.

I notice, by the way, those opposite were so concerned about threats of violence at protests in Melbourne but didn't seem so concerned when people wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the letters 'CFMEU' were committing actual violence against law enforcement officers. I don't remember anyone on that side standing up calling them extremists or bemoaning their violence. I don't remember the member for Chifley going on the ABC and saying that the violence perpetrated by union members against police officers in Victoria has to stop. No, no, that never happened. The rank hypocrisy of those opposite knows no bounds.

This bill is about simply saying to Australians: 'This is how those who claim to be charities are actually spending the money you give to them. This is how those receiving donations from foreign actors who may or may not have Australia's best interests in mind are perpetrating these things.' They get very upset when Clive Palmer spends his own money, but they only get upset with us when we say to some of these charities, 'Hang on, if you think this is the best way to spend the hard-earned money of the working men and women of Australia who gave you their money in good faith, for you to declare it.' No, they're opposed to that.

They want continuous disclosure. Continuous disclosure, I might add, is one of the best ways known to hide donations, because instead of giving $100,000 that gets reported each quarter or each half you give $1,000 for 100 days, and no-one sees what you're up to. No wonder the Labor Party want to bring that in! No wonder the Labor Party want to stop litigation funders from ripping off plaintiffs and from ripping off victims. It would have nothing to do with the fact that Maurice Blackburn gives them $100,000 every year. I'm getting angrier the more I think about the fact that those opposite have the absolute temerity and gall to lecture anyone about transparency and honesty in democracy. Those opposite are the people who took a $100,000 donation from Maurice Blackburn the same day that the Victorian Attorney-General announced that she would allow Maurice Blackburn to take contingency fees in Victoria. They have the gall to come in here and talk to anyone about transparency and honesty in Australian democracy on the very same day that a law firm gave them $100,000.

That's a law firm, by the way, that has a litigation funder housed in Singapore, incorporated in Ireland and with a trust fund in the Netherlands. Oh, no, that's not about tax avoidance! No, that's a normal way that you set up a company in Australia! I'm sure that's how all those working men and women of Australia who those opposite used to represent have set up their small businesses—domiciled in Singapore, incorporated in Ireland, with a trust structure in the Netherlands and an accountant based out of London! That's how everyone does it in Australia! No, only those opposite's donors do. Only their donors do that. Their donors do it, especially so after getting a decision from the Victorian government that benefited them to the tune of God knows how much but probably millions and millions of dollars. They don't want that declared. They'd rather talk to us about real-time disclosures, which is a way of hiding how much money people are giving.

So keep calling the men and women of Australia who work for a living extremists and neo-Nazis and keep telling them that they're homophobes because they've committed the great crime of disagreeing with you. I encourage you to keep doing that. Keep telling us how the ACNC is actually headed up by one of these extremists—a guy by the name of Gary Johns—and ignore the fact that he used to be a Labor member of this chamber. Ignore that fact. Ignore all the inconvenient facts you want, but Australians are on to you guys.

The fact of the matter is that those opposite will support litigation funders. They will support charities that are taking donations from foreign governments, foreign agents and foreigners who don't have Australia's best interests at heart and who will then turn around and use that money for political purposes. Yes, let's keep defending them. Let's stop exposing those people to transparency.

We have, at the moment, all these front groups starting up who say that they're about transparency and honesty and who have raised millions of dollars, but they won't tell us who from. They are basically being run by a group of people who had the benefit of being born to wealthy parents and now want to buy this parliament. They're openly saying it. They're openly saying, 'We want to put more people on the crossbench using millions of dollars of undeclared money.' At the end of the day, they will then use that to arbitrage and leverage decisions that benefit them and their business decisions. Those opposite do not want to expose them to the hard light of day. They do not want to make them actually front up and tell us: where did you get your money from?

Then they make a big deal about the fact we're doing this in the shadow of an election. So when should we do it? On the other side of an election so all your mates can, once again, get away with funnelling hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, into campaigns to influence the outcome of this parliament and to divert public funds to ventures that benefit them?

They don't benefit their members—we know that.

Since the Fair Work Act passed in this chamber, real wages have pretty much stagnated. They want to blame everything except their piece of legislation, but we know it. The men and women of Australia who work for a living know it, too. They're onto you guys. They know that you represent organised capital, not organised labour. Whether it's Climate 200, whether it's the voices against Liberal Party members, whether it's the rising 'something' movement that looks more like a souffle than anything rising, whether it's the OpenAustralia Foundation that essentially—I love how the member for Scullin has done it again. Those opposite do this all the time: 'We're going to move a second reading amendment speech.'

I wonder what the purpose of that was. Could it be that the purpose of it was to force those on this side to vote against what will be a nonsensical amendment so that theyvoteforyou.org.au—run by this OpenAustralia Foundation organisation, which, once again, has tax deductibility status and isn't audited by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission—is allowed to go on and say, 'The member for Bass voted strongly against disclosure laws'? But she didn't. She actually voted for comprehensive transparency laws in our democracy. That's what the member for Bass did.

Those opposite are the ones trying to hide the donations of their mates. Those opposite are the ones who don't want to see that actual Australians know what they and their mates are up to. They don't want Australians to see what the 'voices of' movement is up to. They don't want Australians to see what their friends are doing in the Climate 200 group, this new integrity foundation, the OpenAustralia Foundation, They Vote For You, the 'rising' movement, or the 'voices of' movement, all of which apparently are just community groups.

All the independents who sit on the crossbench, who don't have to declare where they got money from until after the next election—that's what they want. That's what theyvoteforyou.org.au want. But I say to those few Australians listening to this: do not believe what they have to say. If you want to know who voted here and what they really voted for, go to Hansard, because it's not a left-wing front group trying to pretend to be a community organisation. Hansard is an Australian government publication. You will see exactly what your representative voted for, what they voted against or why they didn't vote. The They Vote For You group is a left-wing front group. They've got tax deductibility. Those opposite don't want them to have to disclose where they get their money from, because they want them to continue to campaign in the shadows, in the darkness, where no-one can see them, where no-one knows what they're up to, where no-one knows, really, who's backing them. That's what they really want.

By the way, we know exactly what they're up to because they're open about it. They say to their friends at the ABC and Channel Nine newspapers, 'We want to get more people on the crossbench so we can have leverage over whoever's in government and we can make them do what we want them to do.' They want to change Australia to look more like them, but not like what the majority of Australians want. They see Australian democracy, this parliament, as an arbitrage opportunity. I don't know what those opposite think they're doing. They're making this possible. They're enabling it. It's bad for Australia. It's bad for this parliament. It's bad for Australian democracy. Instead of moving clever second reading amendments that make it look like people actually voting for honest government, for transparent government and for more disclosure are in fact voting against it—that's what theyvoteforyou.org.au will do. Who knows where they got their money from? We do know this: they're part of all these coordinated front groups.

Just today we have another new group: integrity something. It's in the name. Whatever's in the name, it'll be the opposite. They admit they've been working very closely with Climate 200. So, in short, this bill is about exposing this highly coordinated group of left-wing front groups that are disseminating misinformation throughout our democracy and that see this parliament as an arbitrage opportunity and not about democracy. (Time expired)

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since this bill is about political campaigners, I want to use this opportunity to speak about a political campaigner in the ACT who recently passed. Jilpia Nappaljari Jones died on 28 October 2021. She was a great Canberran and a great political campaigner. Jilpia was a Walmajarri native title owner from the Great Sandy Desert who was part of the stolen generations. She was taken from her family at the age of five and raised by foster parents in Queensland. She trained as a nurse and in 1971 helped to form the first Aboriginal community controlled health service in Australia, which is now known as the Aboriginal Medical Service Redfern. She worked with Fred Hollows, Gordon Briscoe and the team at the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program. She studied at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. At the age of 50 she embarked on a new path, enrolling at the Australian National University. She graduated eight years later with majors in political science and history. In that year, 2003, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia and received an Australian Centenary Medal. She went on to work for AIATSIS, researching First Nations health, and made a gigantic contribution to the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people throughout the continent.

Jilpia was a political campaigner. She worked on the political campaign of my friend Chris Burke as well as being a strong supporter of the Labor Party here in the ACT. One of the Labor Party activists, Leah Dwyer, said that Jilpia always insisted that she call young party members—migaloos—'Bub', as we were, in Leah's words, 'all part of her family, at the same table and in the same fight for equality and justice'. Jilpia went through extraordinary hardship in her own life but turned that into energy to campaign for a more just Australia. I acknowledge her here in the parliament and recognise the immense loss that her partner, John Thompson, must be feeling.

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Political Campaigners) Bill 2021 lowers the electoral campaign expenditure threshold for individuals required to register as 'political campaigners'. Right now, there are two categories: individuals or entities with electoral expenditure of at least half a million dollars a year, or in any one of the three previous financial years; and entities for whom electoral expenditure constitutes at least two-thirds of annual income. They have to register as political campaigners and they are responsible for more onerous reporting requirements, as they should be. They also cannot receive foreign donations. Organisations which are currently registered as political campaigners include the ACTU, GetUp, the Minerals Council, the Minderoo Foundation, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Advance Australia, the CFMMEU, the AEU, the ANMF and the ASU.

And then there is a category of entities which are registered as 'third parties'. Third parties are those who have a lower electoral spend. They include charities such as the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Bob Brown Foundation, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the RSPCA, the St Vincent de Paul Society, the SDA, the United Workers Union, the CEPU and the NUW.

What this bill would do is reduce the income threshold for a political campaigner from $500,000 to $100,000 and reduce the electoral expenditure threshold from two-thirds of annual income to one-third of annual income. That's a massive impact on charities who are currently within that range of electoral expenditure between $100,000 and $500,000. It brings them into a regime which requires significantly more paperwork. For a government that's constantly talking about removing the red tape burden, this is imposing a significant red tape burden on civil society groups and advocates.

Neither the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters nor the government has provided any compelling reason for reducing the thresholds which were put into place to take into account the level of advocacy provided by civil society groups and in recognition that advocacy is different from the kind of partisan political activity that the Liberal Party, the Labor Party, the National Party and the Greens party engage in. There is a rightful role for charities to be part of the democratic conversation, and the democratic conversation is better for the involvement of charities in it.

When the government last tried this on, last attempted to massively increase the reporting burden on charities that want to be part of the public conversation, that brought charities together. It didn't bring charities together in favour of the government; it brought charities together against the government. That is the Morrison government—uniting charities against it. Since the government came into office in 2013, there have been multiple open letters from the sector to successive prime ministers, calling on the government to back down on their attacks on charities. The Hands Off Our Charities alliance, formed in 2018, is a coalition of 44 charities and not-for-profits spanning education, human rights, animal welfare, the environment, health, climate change, disability rights and philanthropy. Its members include Anglicare Australia, Amnesty International, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Council of Social Service, the Climate Council, Community Legal Centres Australia, the Human Rights Law Centre, Oxfam Australia, Pew Charitable Trusts, UnitingCare Australia, and Save the Children. What does Hands Off Our Charities have to say about this proposal? They say:

HOOC members are extremely concerned by this recommendation as many of the aspects of the EFDR Act, including the threshold for becoming a political campaigner, were very thoroughly consulted and considered prior to its enactment.

That's talking about the way in which the thresholds are currently set. Further:

Lowering the threshold for becoming a political campaigner would introduce a very significant compliance burden for many third parties and … would have a chilling effect on public interest advocacy in the lead up to elections.

Overwhelmingly, evidence in this area of law has been for more transparency of political parties, including reforms to introduce real time disclosure of political donations and to lower the donations disclosure threshold. Nevertheless, the Government has resisted these reforms on the grounds that it is a too high and unnecessary administrative burden for political parties. It is disappointing that the Committee is willing to ask third parties to take a substantial administrative burden for little extra transparency, while not offering support to key transparency reforms overwhelmingly supported by the Australian public.

That is the Hands Off Our Charities alliance speaking on behalf of 44 charities and not-for-profits right across the ideological spectrum.

This is yet another attack from the Morrison government on charities. We saw the period from 2011 until 2016, in which the formal position of the coalition was to get rid of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission—a one-stop-shop body set up after multiple independent reports called for the creation of a one-stop-shop body for charities. Its role is akin to the role that ASIC plays in a corporate context, but, from the coalition's campaign against the charities commission, we see the way in which they have such disregard for charities. They've gone through some six different ministers responsible for the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, and they only finally backed down on trying to kill the charities commission when they realised they couldn't get their repeal bill through the Senate.

What did they do then? In the hours after the marriage equality vote passing, when the nation was rightly focused on that important bill, the government announced that the person who would head the charities commission would be none other than Gary Johns, an appointment which is akin to putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank or Bronwyn Bishop in charge of politicians' entitlements. We've seen under Gary Johns a divisive approach taken to charities. He's somebody who in the past had attacked respected charities such as Recognise and Beyond Blue; who had referred to Indigenous women as 'cash cows'; who had said that there was a great deal of what he called 'impure altruism' in the charities business; and who was best known not as a collaborator with charities but as a critic of charities.

The fact is that the Liberals don't want an independent charity sector. They don't want independent voices contributing to the public conversation. We've seen that time and again, with attempts to gag social service charities, to get environmental charities out of the public debate and to say to legal aid bodies that they should not have a say on issues of law reform. The coalition's view on charities is that it's alright for social services charities to run a soup kitchen but they shouldn't talk about inequality. They think it's alright for environmental charities to plant trees but they shouldn't talk about climate change. They think it's alright for legal aid workers to help an individual defendant in court but they shouldn't talk about the root causes of the rise in Indigenous incarceration. The coalition have a view that charities should be seen and not heard. That's why we have this continued spate of attacks on charities.

We're seeing it again at the moment, with an attempt to increase the powers of the charities commissioner to deregister charities for summary offences, which could include something in the order of trespassing or blocking a footpath. We've had religious charities speaking out about this, including Catholic charities, who sometimes organise Palm Sunday rallies for refugees, an activity which, if someone blocked a footpath, could see the responsible charity deregistered.

Now we have the extraordinary spectacle of Minister Sukkar not withdrawing his attempted regulation but propagating a new regulation. So he now believes that the power for charities to be deregistered if they engage in trespassing or blocking a footpath should remain but that it should no longer be possible to deregister them for causing emotional harm. I will leave it to Minister Sukkar to explain why the category of a charity that causes emotional harm is the sole category that he's decided to withdraw. But that change in no way addresses the concerns raised by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation, whose bipartisan report has made clear that the government's regulation should be disallowed. I credit Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and her coalition colleagues, who have gone against Minister Sukkar and said that this regulation should be disallowed by the Senate, and I commend the work that those senators have done—along with my colleague Kim Carr, the deputy chair of that committee—to carefully scrutinise the government's proposals to make it easier for charities to be deregistered.

The simplest thing right now would be for Minister Sukkar to back down; to recognise that his own party room colleagues have said that his attempt to make it easier for Gary Johns to deregister a charity should be rejected; and not to play political games with One Nation with this new change, which doesn't go to any of the substantive concerns that charities and his own coalition colleagues have raised. Minister Sukkar is engaged in another fight against charities. Charities have had nothing but war waged upon them under the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments. It's been more than eight years of war being waged on charities. Labor will do things differently. Labor will ensure we work with charities, not against them, respecting charities and respecting the valuable role that they play in public advocacy and in strengthening Australia's democracy.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak briefly on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Political Campaigners) Bill 2021. I do so because it introduces a number of important reforms to help enhance transparency and accountability in our democracy. It ensures that significant political actors, and political actors that incur electoral expenditure representing a significant component of the organisation's activity, are subject to requirements that more closely align with existing duties for candidates, parliamentarians and political parties. These new requirements will require individuals and organisations to register with the Australian Electoral Commission as political campaigners if they incur over $100,000 in electoral expenditure in a financial year. They will also apply if electoral expenditure is in excess of $14,500 in a financial year where it is more than a third of that individual's or organisation's annual revenue. These measures do not place an unreasonable regulatory or administrative burden on those affected, as they're already subject to mandatory disclosure obligations as a third party under the electoral act or are required to make such disclosures if similar electoral expenditure is incurred.

The amendments are in response to recommendation 18 of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report on the conduct of the 2019 election. This report found that Australia's electoral system remained in good health but identified room for improvement in some areas of the voting process. The Australian Electoral Commission gave evidence that it administers a voting service that is one of the fairest, most open and accessible in the world, and that the election was participated in by a record number of Australians, with 96.8 per cent enrolled to vote. This indicates a very high level of confidence in the health of our voting system. However, without continued reform, the system can quickly become outdated and fail to meet the needs of a modern democracy. Certainly, over the last couple of election cycles that I've been involved in as a candidate and member, I have seen the need for emerging reforms such as these.

That need is why this bill calls for enhanced transparency and accountability that will help level the playing field so that organisations established to campaign for or in conjunction with political parties are not exempt from public scrutiny. These organisations are entitled to communicate views and to support whoever they wish. In fact, it's important that they contribute to public debate and is an important part of enriching our democracy with varying views and perspectives. At the same time, if they're going to campaign in a way that is similar to political parties, they should be subject to some level of reporting and disclosure requirements. Without this, there is a two-tiered system of accountability.

The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report also highlighted numerous incidences of abusive and unacceptable behaviour throughout the election campaign period which put workers, volunteers and those intending to vote at risk. It outlined that some members of parliament experienced some pretty horrific and obscene personal abuse, including stalking and harassment of a female candidate and anti-Semitic vandalism. This simply is not good enough. We really should be able to disagree respectfully and without resorting to violence or abuse or threats. I'm speaking on this legislation because, although I haven't spoken publicly about my experiences as a marginal seat candidate, I have had a number of personal experiences dealing with some members of organisations, affiliated with my opponents, that campaigned very strongly—and in many instances personally—against me. While I welcome democracy, there really is a fundamental fine line between healthy campaigning and the contest of ideas and personal abuse and insults.

The seat of Robertson is a marginal seat and it's one that my team and I and my volunteers expect will be hotly contested at a federal election. Political parties and many affiliated organisations devote a significant amount of resources to compete, and my volunteers, supporters and I have become very accustomed to seeing large numbers of individuals from many different organisations, including the unions, GetUp!, other political campaigns and of course some supporters of independent candidates on polling booths. We appreciate that supporters of the opposition have a right to express their views and campaign for their chosen candidate. However, there has been some behaviour by those affiliated with opponents in my electorate that, quite frankly, has been disgusting and unacceptable.

I can recall many, many instances of this, most of which are not fit to put on the public record, so vile and abhorrent were the actions and the behaviour of some of these individuals. But one that I can recall which is perhaps a little less offensive is an individual in a red shirt standing at Woy Woy pre-poll during the last federal election campaign in 2019 who began calling me a number of highly derogatory, offensive and very personal names and began using very inappropriate language in front of a whole range of people on the street. Even after being asked to stop, this individual continued a verbal tirade of abuse against me in front of a number of local stakeholders, including the prominent president of a local community group, who also stepped in and asked that he stop. He sneered when called out. He said he had a right to do this and that I had no right to be respected and I deserved no dignity or protection from verbal abuse, because of my beliefs. That is not democracy. That is absolutely not something that anyone in this parliament should condone or accept.

What may have been dismissed as poor behaviour by one individual became more significant given that, when it was called out, several opposition organising representatives were present but said nothing, did nothing and looked the other way—which has become all too common an occurrence time after time after time. In doing so, they were actually condoning this behaviour and they sent a clear message that volunteers were free to treat my volunteers and me in whatever way they chose, simply because they did not agree with what we were putting forward for the election. That is one example of many that I can recall from the election. Many are, frankly, too graphic or vile to raise in this chamber, as I've said before, and I will not be doing so.

I do believe that, in this country, we have a right to freedom of speech, but I also believe that we ought to have accountability and responsibilities as well. As representatives of political parties in a democracy like Australia, we really must hold ourselves to a very high standard and demonstrate respect for each other, be that in polling booths, at other events in the electorate or, indeed, in the parliament. Without this basic respect, our society can quickly become divided, and we as leaders have an obligation to ensure that this does not happen.

The bill before the House introduces a number of reforms to enhance transparency and accountability in our electoral system. These amendments help ensure that those involved in the political processes are subject to public scrutiny and accountability—the hallmarks of a healthy democracy. I certainly hope that this bill goes some way towards improving some of the horrendous behaviour that we unfortunately experienced personally in my electorate and that was experienced in many other electorates in the 2019 election. We must continue the process of reform to ensure a fair and just electoral system for generations to come. It is on that basis that I commend this bill to the House.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.