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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill, the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Lowering the Donation Disclosure Threshold) Bill 2023, goes hand in hand with the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Real Time Disclosure of Political Donations) Bill 2023, which I just introduced. We need to have real-time disclosure of political donations and we need to lower the donation disclosure threshold.

Australia has some of the most lax political donation laws in the world. That is true. We rank only 106th out of 180 countries on the Regulation of Political Finance Indicator. Among 13 nations with similar socioeconomic circumstances, including New Zealand, several European nations, the United States and Canada, we manage only eighth. That's pretty appalling.

This is largely due to having fewer restrictions on who can donate and spending limits, weaker regulation requirements and less access to public funding than other comparable nations.

The interim report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry into the 2022 federal election identified that former MP Clive Palmer's mining company donated $117 million to his United Australia Party for the 2022 election campaign, while Pratt Holdings shared around $3.7 million across the two major parties.

The Grattan Institute noted in its submission that union donations made up more than half of all Labor's declared donations, and that some wealthy individuals and corporations channelled donations through fundraising entities associated with the Liberal or National parties. Australia also saw a rise in donations from significant third parties to Independents like myself. The Parliamentary Library found that the existing political finance laws were challenged in effectively capturing the political finance activities of Independent candidates at the 2022 election and noted that complexity rendered it difficult for some Independent candidates to comply.

Further, the Centre for Public Integrity, in its submission to the joint standing committee stated:

With Australian political parties declaring $1.38 billion in income of unexplained origin between 1998/99- 2020/21 … the Commonwealth's high disclosure threshold is creating a transparency void. For the 2020/21 financial year alone, 38.6% of parties' income—or $68,265,479—was of unexplained origin.

That is a huge amount of money to be swimming around the system when nobody knows where it comes from. They noted that this is significantly out of step with states' and territories' thresholds for disclosure of such donations.

During the last parliament, myself and the now Special Minister of State, in his shadow role, and other members introduced proposals to lower the reporting threshold for political donations. But we haven't seen anything yet in this parliament. So I would urge the government: when you were in opposition, you supported this, so please be the champion now and bring this into our parliament.

This bill also provides that donations include gifts. The definition of 'gift' is broadened to include electoral expenditure and gifts-in-kind to a political entity, where the value of the gift is equal to or more than $1,000 and provided without consideration or with inadequate consideration. The bill also expands the definition to include amounts paid to attend fundraisers or functions. As the member for Indi just said in a speech related to the previous bill, it is absurd that we can have a system where somebody can pay for the exclusivity of being in the company of ministers, to the tune of thousands of dollars—$20,000—just to sit at the table, and that that is not disclosed. We don't know. We need to change this system. If we want people to trust us, they need to see that big money is out of this place.

This bill does not limit the amount that may be donated, nor prevent certain organisations from making donations. I would like to see in future bills that we actually limit the amount that people can donate. They have that in Canada. They have a maximum amount that an individual can donate, and corporations can't donate. I think that that's entirely sensible. What that means is that we need to properly fund candidates and systems much better than we do in Australia. We need to get the big money influence out of politics.

I first introduced this bill back in 2019 after the Museum of Australian Democracy launched Democracy 2025 with a report entitled Trust and democracy in Australia: democratic decline and renewal. This report found that without action to address eroding trust in key institutions fewer than 10 per cent of Australians would trust their politicians and political institutions by 2025. Well, we're a year out from that, and I believe we need to stem this growing electoral arms race and lack of transparency. I believe that it threatens trust in us all—as individuals and collectively—and ultimately in democracy, so I call on all members to support this bill.

I'd like to provide my remaining time to the member for Fowler, who is seconding this bill, but I might just again read from that dissenting report from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters that was tabled in 2020. In the dissenting report, Labor said:

… it is Labor's strong belief that donations reform and transparency in disclosure are the vital next steps in preventing undue influence and restoring faith in our democracy.

Thank you, and I would like to provide the rest of my time to the member for Fowler, who is seconding the bill.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. The Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Lowering the Donation Disclosure Threshold) Bill 2023 relates to the issues of integrity and transparency. The member for Mayo's bills propose real-time and lower-threshold reporting and the disclosure of political donations to eliminate any grey areas or uncertainty and to ensure there is a record of every donation and gift made to every politician and political party in the country. I note that a similar call was made to ban foreign donations and introduce real-time donation disclosure in 2018 in which the Senate passed a bill to ban foreign donations of more than $100. However, both Labor and the Liberals did not support the real-time donation disclosure or caps on anonymous donations.

We know that political donations come from a range of companies—from fossil fuel, gambling and alcohol companies to unions—and often the amount increases just prior to an election. According to the AEC's 2021-22 financial disclosure, more than 75 per cent of political donations to the major parties came from just 10 individuals. Is it just me, or does anyone else find it unbelievable that over 75 per cent of the money for the last election came from just 10 individuals? How much do these companies and individuals influence our government's policies and decision-making processes at the end of the day?

When I ran as an Independent candidate for the federal seat of Fowler in 2022, I had no-one to call on to donate to my campaign, but I used my own funds—my personal funds—which we borrowed against our mortgage. We put our money where our mouth was. In addition, the community also donated, from an elderly pensioner for the amount of $100 to people who were giving me $25. I think the cut-price cost of my campaign has been well documented. Not all political donations are underhanded—in fact, most are critical for a successful campaign—but we must identify where and who the money came from and make this clear to the public. If we want to engage our communities in the political system, then we must enable transparency. Political donations have a place in our political process, but only if there is a framework in which they can exist and operate, instead of the perception that the more you donate, the more access you have to the people in the high offices.

Again, I want to emphasise that I am not against political donations. But it is important that we have rules in place that prevent political donations from manipulating politicians or political parties in favour of the views, opinions and beliefs of some of the big donors. A 2018 Grattan Institute report Who's in the room? Access and influence in Australian politics said that powerful groups have effectively 'triumphed over the public interest', and that's not in the best interest of hardworking Australians. It's all up to us here in the House to ensure the future of our democracy is not tainted by industry or corporate heavyweights throwing money around in exchange for public policy that favours their cause. Essentially the significant amendments aim to restore balance, transparency and integrity by mandating guidelines for the reporting of political gifts and donations to the Australian Electoral Commission.

The Australian public deserve honesty, and the member for Mayo's amendments call on the government to focus on building trust and to restore integrity and transparency in our political donations process. Therefore, I commend the bill to the House.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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