Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move amendments (1) to (4), as circulated in my name, together:

(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 5, column 1), omit "to 4", substitute "and 3".

(2) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 8, column 1), omit "Schedules 6 and 7", substitute "Schedule 6".

(3) Schedule 4, page 95 (line 1) to page 129 (line 8), omit the Schedule.

(4) Schedule 7, page 169 (line 1) to page 188 (line 29), omit the Schedule.

It is outrageous that this bill is not going to an inquiry. The government and the coalition won't agree on anything. Why do you think they agree on this? It is the biggest reform to our electoral system in 40 years. It took six months to draft, but apparently it doesn't need any scrutiny. Communities are showing that they want choice, and this bill would reduce our choices.

With more time, better amendments could be proposed with input from the experts and the public. They could address both the intended-but-undemocratic parts of the bill and the inevitable unintended consequences of this bill, of which I'm sure there are many. But, given the timing of this bill and the way it is being unceremoniously rushed through the House and the Senate this fortnight, I'm going to constrain my amendments to a couple of conceptual things that are deeply problematic. These are the most offensive parts of the bill, although there is tough competition for which are the most offensive parts.

My amendments remove schedule 4 and schedule 7. Schedule 4 deals with expenditure caps. Expenditure caps on election expenses are complicated and not fair. It you're an incumbent, you have an office, you have staff and you have a communications budget. If you're in a party, there are also senators in your area that have their own communications budgets. The way this legislation is drafted, any ads that are not for the individual but are for the party are not counted within the divisional cap, so a party incumbent could outspend a challenger many times over. Just listen to that. They could outspend a challenger many times over. This is not a level playing field.

Now, a small tweak to the spending cap for challenges is not going to fix this. This is a fundamental problem with the legislation. Spending caps are not necessary if you deal with transparency and a reasonable donation cap. I think a fair bit of work needs to be done on that too, but that needs to be done in a sensible, considered way in full public view, not rushed through in a hurry like this. This is not banning big money; it is protecting the parties and locking out challengers. That is why my amendment proposes to remove schedule 4 on expenditure caps.

The second change in my amendments is to remove schedule 7. This is administrative assistance funding and election funding. We are in a cost-of-living crisis. Why should taxpayers massively increase payments for political campaigns when so many people are struggling? This is just wrong. An increase in public funding to politicians like this was attempted in 2013, but the public got wind of it and it was pulled. The public realised they were being asked to pay more for political campaigns, and that was not on. This is a huge increase of about $40 million in public funding for politicians. There are two types here. There's public funding on a per-vote basis and administrative assistance funding, and both types lock in the major parties. For per-vote public funding, we're going to see a huge increase under this legislation, from $3.50 to $5. This is calculated based on how many votes you got in the last election, so it's great if you happen to be an incumbent. It's not great if you're a challenger. If you didn't get any votes last time, because you weren't running, you get no funding. This makes just one more challenge that people have to face when they are taking on the two-party duopoly. Parties are able to make a profit in unwinnable seats and shift that money to where they're being challenged. They can harvest that public funding and use it strategically. It gives them a war chest to fight any new challengers. Now, this is fine for me; I'm an incumbent. But it's not fine for anyone new who thinks that we need new ideas and new ways of being represented in our politics. This reduces competition, and it's not on.

The administrative assistance funding is also deeply problematic. This is a huge transfer of cash from taxpayers to political parties, and it doesn't have to be spent; it can be banked. If it is spent, it can be sent on all sorts of things—way too many different things. It's $30,000 per MP and $15,000 per senator but all the admin is done centrally by the party—so, even though every extra MP a party has attracts another $30,000, all that admin is done by one or two people centrally. And there are definitely economies of scale in administration—ask any company in the country. (Time expired)

I seek leave to continue.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Other members of the crossbench wish to speak on the amendments. As they're well aware, they can just alternate the call between themselves.

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe I'm allowed to ask for an extension in consideration in detail.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm just being respectful to the crossbench. There are other crossbench members who wish to speak, but if the member wants to continue I'm happy to grant leave for her to continue.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please proceed.

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No company in the country would propose an admin fee that increases in a straight line with the number of employees or widgets or anything else. It is laughable and it doesn't recognise the economies of scale. If communities want to be represented outside the major parties it creates a major hurdle. There are problems with many other parts of the bill as well, but there is no time for careful consideration or public scrutiny because it is being rushed through. The government might throw a few scraps around in a show of cooperation on amendments, but we will see no serious scrutiny and no serious amendments. Both major parties have voted against further scrutiny.

If the major parties want to regain votes they should do it by offering better leadership, not by changing the rules. Voters will not forget that the two major parties are pulling up the ladder here. Australians are sick of it. If this legislation is in fact about transparency and preventing individuals from having too much influence, they'd accept these amendments. If it's about locking in the two parties, they won't.

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the amendments moved by the member for Curtin. She's been able to identify two discrete parts of this legislation that could be removed and still enable the government to proceed with significant electoral reform. I think it's a smart way forward. When you look at a lot of the commentary that is coming out of the public sector across our country, many—as am I—are prepared to accept a lower donation threshold and many are prepared to accept as close as possible to real-time donations. But there are significant concerns in what appears to be a baked-in disproportional benefit for party participants when it comes to expenditure caps and this weird new category of public funding called administrative funding.

To be clear, the bill ostensibly imposes spending caps at a divisional level, a state level and a federal level as well as for Senate campaigns. Yet the caps as they're currently structured are riddled with loopholes that ultimately benefit the legacy parties. Why? Because a divisional cap, which is where somebody like an Independent exists, is set at $800,000 per seat—meaning a candidate is allowed to only spend up to that amount, be they an incumbent or a challenger. A party candidate, however, while in theory being subjected to the same divisional spending cap, is free to have their campaign topped up with executions that are funded under a federal cap for a party which goes up to $90 million.

I acknowledge that political parties do not contest every lower house seat or every Senate seat, and they do not spend the same amount of money in every seat; in fact, they shift the money between seats so they are focused on those seats that they see as the most vulnerable. Under this legislation, parties will essentially be able to put themselves into a situation where they are able to back up individual candidates in divisions by providing additional advertising and electoral marketing materials that go over and above what is everybody else's budget. I think that is fundamentally unfair, and my community of North Sydney would not support that; they would like to see that removed. If it's going to be an 800-kay cap, make it 800 kay for all—including the party expenditure that takes place over and above an individual's direct expenditure.

I will go to this innocuous funding stream called the administrative funding assistance. To be clear, for anyone listening at home, the administrative funding would see every MP in the House of Representatives receive $30,000 a year, whilst every senator would receive $15,000 a year. In the case of an Independent, that money comes directly to them, but in the case of a party the funds are consolidated and the party machine would receive that funding on a quarterly basis. That means the vast majority of this funding will go to the major parties based on a false premise that administrative costs increase proportionately with the number of members. But they don't. It doesn't work like that.

Most of the costs of running a political party are fixed, and it makes no sense to presume that they would increase in direct line with an increase in the number of members. Interestingly, the government has intimated that these provisions have been included predominantly at the behest of people like me—Independents—to cover what are very real compliance costs, including legal fees and accounting fees. When you are just one person wholly and solely bearing those costs they are difficult to get up and over. But, in looking at the detail in this legislation, when I run the numbers on the current members sitting in the House, this legislation means that the major parties would get $4.8 million a year of public funding to use not just on legal fees and accounting fees, but for all sorts of things, including conference attendance, seminar attendance, meetings or similar functions at which policies of a registered political party are discussed, expenditure on equipment or vehicles used by staff and, perhaps most offensively, to pay interest payments on loans!

I'm okay if you want to discuss an administrative payment, because accounting fees and legal fees are high, but I think when we start talking about covering loan repayments for the major parties we have a problem. Therefore, as proposed by the member for Curtin, should be removed from the bill.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a number of questions for the minister in relation to the broader bill. They're not specifically on these amendments, so I'm happy for you to speak first or for me to ask you these questions here or at another point in this debate.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In response to that question, I'll just speak to the amendments for five minutes, and then we can move on to other questions about the bill.

The government does not support these amendments, because we do support expenditure caps. We think that that is the right path forward. We think the idea that you can have unlimited amounts of money spent in an electorate for one individual candidate is not sustainable, and we need to stop that. That's why we can't support these amendments, because they will remove those expenditure caps. They will lead to unlimited spending, which is one of the key issues that we're seeking to address.

The member for Curtin said that it was complicated and unfair. Is it complicated? Yes. But just because it's complicated it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, because it is very fair to make sure that we shift the power from big money—which is the power that is being defended by some in this debate—to the voters of Australia. That is indeed what the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended we do. That is what the government wants to do. It's time to get the big money out and put voters back in control.

I note that the member for Curtin significantly outspent her other seven opponents. But even under this proposal, with an expenditure cap of $800,000 per candidate, if there were another eight candidates at the election that this would apply to, which is 2028, the voters of Curtin would still see the ability for $6.4 million to be spent across the eight candidates in that electorate. Now, that's a lot of democracy. That's a lot of letters in the letterbox. That is a lot of signs as you drive down the Stirling Highway. It's a lot of billboards.

I just want to make this point. When it comes to the differences on the crossbench on questions about funding of members with administrative funding, we have the full spectrum. We have some members of the crossbench who are saying that we should have no administrative funding for members. Some are saying that we should cap that administrative funding. And the second reading amendment from the member for Warringah, which we just voted down, was to give public administrative funding not when someone is elected to parliament but when someone nominates as a candidate—a $36 million handout just for someone putting in a nomination form. I don't know about you, Deputy Speaker Goodenough, but we don't provide money unless people reach a certain threshold of spending. The idea that we would simply hand out $36 million just to a person who nominates is not a sustainable proposition.

The amendments that were proposed by the member for Curtin—there are many things I agree with her on, but on this I fundamentally disagree. I don't think the amendment that would provide unrestricted spending by wealthy individuals is what the Australian people want. I think most Australians would say that the idea that someone even has $20,000 to hand over, out of their pocket, to an individual candidate is quite a luxury to have.

We've had others in this debate say that $20,000 is a low or a small amount. You tell that to the working people of Australia who would never have the luxury of having $20,000 to hand over to a candidate of their choice. So, while the $20,000 cap is a very high cap, it is one that is indeed—

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Curtin?

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On relevance: my amendment does not deal with donation caps. It doesn't talk about the amount of money that can be put in by a wealthy individual. It is about spending caps, which is a different issue. That's the total amount that you can spend in an election. If 5,000 people donate $200 each, why can't that be used in an electoral campaign? What he's talking about there—wealthy individuals—does not go to this amendment.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I ask the minister to please confine his comments to the amendment.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think I'm talking to the bill in its entirety in this consideration in detail stage. I'm talking to the entirety of the proposals that are put forward by the member for Curtin. I note that it does—when we talk about these expenditure caps, removing expenditure caps means that, for those who have money of their own, under this proposal if you delete all expenditure caps then, yes, anyone who has a large amount of money, if you're already a wealthy individual who seeks to go into the parliament and you can afford to or have the luxury to fund your own campaign— (Time expired)

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a question for the minister. If 5,000 people donated $200 each, why shouldn't that be used in an electoral campaign? In what way is that not consistent with democracy?

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government's proposal simply seeks to place a cap on how much can be spent in a single electorate by a single candidate; that's a very sensible proposal. That total cap on spending is $800,000. Again, I don't think many people in this place spend that much in their own individual seats. It happens in just a couple of seats in my home state of Western Australia; it doesn't happen in my seat, but that's the proposal.

Again, I recognise that different people have donations from different forums and people get funding from different places. But, whether it's someone who contributes $5,000—again, a very large amount of money to contribute to a candidate—or someone who just so happens to be individually and personally wealthy, the fact that they should have no restrictions on their spending, no restrictions at all, is very unsustainable. It is completely at odds with the recommendations that we've seen.

Again, I want to go through the history of how we've got to this point. Way back on 5 August 2022, the Special Minister of State did—

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Point of order, the member for Warringah?

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's the consideration in detail stage. This is about the amendments or the question put to the minister; it's not a time to do a second reading speech.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Out of respect to you, Deputy Speaker, I would note that this is indeed how we do consideration in detail. Question time will be in a couple of hours. Members are more than welcome to ask questions in question time in that format under those standing orders, but I'll continue to operate under the consideration in detail standing orders, which have served this place well for many years.

Again, how did we get to these recommendations that the government is acting on? The government is acting on what has been put to government by a multipartisan committee. That goes all the way back to 5 August 2022, when the Special Minister of State wrote to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and specifically asked them to inquire into donation reform, funding of elections, limits on spending and truth in advertising. It's there in the letter with the referral for the inquiry: limits on spending. And the idea that we will somehow take out those limits on spending at the last minute, after talking about it for more than two years, deeply concerns me.

The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters released an interim report, and that interim report goes all the way back to 19 June 2023, combined with the final report. I want to read out some of those recommendations—which, again, have been with us for more than 1½ years.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mackellar?

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Am I able to ask a question to the minister at this point?

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it's got to be a point of order. Minister, please continue.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those recommendations, on the table for more than 1½ years, clearly recommended lowering the disclosure threshold to $1,000, and we've got to get that done. None of us in this place is guaranteed a seat in the next parliament—not one of us. That's a really important principle. Therefore, if we have an opportunity to do something about this, we should do it now.

The second recommendation—really clear, up front—was that the Australian government introduce real-time disclosure requirements. Again, that is what the government is doing: acting on this report, and acting within the same parliament to which it was delivered—because there is no guarantee; the Australian people reign supreme in this system. We're trying to give them more power through these reforms, but they decide who's here in the next parliament. We want to make sure the job they sent us to do this time is done.

Reforms to the definition of a gift were recommended, to ensure more transparency and meet community expectations of political donations. Again, recommendation 4—right up front, on the first page:

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government introduce donation caps for federal election donations.

Then, right after that, right next to it, is recommendation 5:

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government introduce expenditure (also known as spending) caps for federal elections.

And that is what we are doing, and that is what's at debate right now with this amendment. I don't see how anyone can go back to their electorates and say, 'We want to see more of those $2 million versus $2 million campaigns, big money versus big money, election after election.' It's unsustainable. It is not in our democratic principles as a nation. We want to make sure the Australian people get the chance to have their voice heard, whoever they choose to send to this place. That's why the government can't support these amendments. They are not consistent with the recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and not consistent with the expectations of the Australian people. (Time expired)

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a really quick question to the assistant minister. Assistant Minister, is it your contention that every seat will have the same amount spent on it under this electoral reform? Or is it the case that some parties' seats will be able to have more money spent in them than an Independent seat?

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will go through the caps in their entirety. I think it's important that we are clear on exactly how they roll out. They're outlined in the explanatory memorandum, which I referred to earlier. If we go through what the caps are for spending, I think we know that there's $800,000 for an individual seat. There's a total $90 million annual expenditure cap and the same divisional and Senate expenditure caps, regardless of party size or number of candidates the party is endorsing. That's been very clear for a long time. That's been outlined.

If we go to how that plays out, it is a cap per candidate when it comes to material that endorses an individual candidate, and that's been very clear. That's been what the government, after lots of consultation, got to. Perhaps I could just go through a little bit of the consultation the Special Minister of State has done on this. Obviously there's the inquiry, to which we saw more than 1,500 submissions provided. We had I think 12 hearings in total. Indeed, we've adopted that inquiry and its final report as the impact analysis in the explanatory memorandum. That's not always the case. That's not always how governments do things, but it's actually the government showing respect to the parliament.

We've seen consultation across the Department of Finance. I had the opportunity, last night, to thank officials of the Department of Finance who've helped with the drafting and preparation of this bill. On that, I'll also note thanks to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, who provide all the drafting services to the Commonwealth for these types of matters.

We have consulted across a range of government agencies. Obviously, discussions have had to happen with the Australian Electoral Commission, where we're talking about new processes to make sure that what is proposed can be implemented by the independent electoral commission that we are so fortunate to have.

We've seen consultations across members of the crossbench, who are here with us now, and they know that because they've been in those conversations themselves. We've had conversations with a range of organisations. I myself have reviewed the submission that was made by Climate 200—which was thanked in the member for Curtin's inaugural speech—amongst others. We have continued to outline these proposals time and time again.

The Minister himself—going as far back as interviews he did on 26 March 2023, talking about electoral reform—has been clear that this has been a priority for the government. It's been clear that we knew we needed to do something when it came to donation reforms.

When it comes to making sure that we have spending caps, we want to make sure that those spending caps are both able to run a campaign that allows voters to get information and not give all of the power to those who have the deepest pockets. That's a really simple proposition. I don't know what it is in your ideas that are so confusing that you would need to spend more than $800,000 in an electorate of some 120,000 to 130,000 people. I don't know why you would need to spend more than that amount of money. It is a very high bar. It's a very reasonable expectation that we would have an expenditure cap.

With that, I'm noting the time. I think our time might be eating into the goods words of the Treasurer for some contributions around the economy.

Debate adjourned.