Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Hansard source

That is the rule. That is the particular provision that we are looking at here: it is the capacity to get a majority in this chamber. In the American Senate, which has 100 senators, 40 senators are people who have wealth in excess of $1 million—40 per cent of the American Senate. One thing that has always struck me as one of the great things about the Australian political system is that you can get elected without having a lot of money. What you are going to see under these arrangements is a big change in the way in which our electoral system functions. That is the consequence of these arrangements. Large sums of money will flow into the system, and no-one will be accountable for it. That will attract a different type of candidate. People will need to spend a lot more money to get elected here. A different sort of candidate will emerge as a result of that. We will see the Americanisation of the political system in this country. That is something that we should deeply regret.

The government think it is a smart move to pull. They think this is an easy way to secure their longevity. In fact, it may well prove that in the short term they are able to attract more money and it may well hurt the opposition parties in this country. It may well hurt the Labor Party. I have no doubt we will hear a lot about unions in a few moments. I can say to you that, of all the money that was put into the Labor Party at the last election by unions, which was about $1 million, one individual—one British lord—put in the equivalent amount. Under these arrangements what you are going to see is extraordinary sums of money coming into the system, and it will be unaccountable and in secret. It will be the dirty money that comes with demands for political favours to be exercised.

There will be no-one around to be able to say, ‘Why did you do that?’ because we will not see any connection between the donations that are actually given to the political parties, their public declarations and the subsequent actions that governments take. You have to bear that in mind when we are talking about these matters. We are talking about the capacity to buy political favour. I have yet to hear from the government any defence that suggests they are going to be able to protect themselves—and that is an important part of this; it is not only to protect the parliament but also to protect themselves—from the capacity of unscrupulous individuals to actually buy political influence as a result of being able to make secret donations.

I have mentioned $80,000, but I can see circumstances where perhaps that is underestimating the impact. There could be a situation, as I think Senator Ludwig pointed out this evening, where you might get a couple of people in a family contributing individually. You would see multiples of $80,000 added through. It may well be considerably more than that. An extra $10 million, which the parliamentary research note draws our attention to, is not an unrealistic figure to expect. Under those circumstances we are likely to see a dramatic fall in the level of accountability that will flow from this.

I am deeply disturbed by this proposal. For many reasons I think that tonight we will see the continuation of an argument. It will not end here, whatever the vote is tonight. This is the sort of thing that rots at the heart of a political system because it allows for dirty, big money politics to actually infect the political system. The key to it is being able to say to people, ‘This is where we got our money from and these are the circumstances under which we got it.’ If you go to a system where a political party has access to this sort of money—undeclared, anonymous money—then the political favours that flow from that I think can lead to very serious consequences for the probity of the political system.

There is a lot at stake here on this vote. This is not just a question of short-term political advantage for the Liberal Party and inflating the Liberal Party vote at the next election. This may well have quite serious consequences for the general political system and the probity of the Australian electoral system. One of the things that we could genuinely hold our heads up on until now is that Australian politics is largely pretty clean. I say that the secret of it is the fact that people are required to declare where they get their money from. That is what is being put at risk here with these arrangements. That is what troubles me about these propositions.

The government think that, because it is Liberal Party policy, we should just accept it with no explanation. We should just cop it sweet. They have tried in the past and failed, and now they have the numbers they expect us to go quietly on it. Minister, you are wrong about that. People will not go quietly on this. This will be a matter that is fought right throughout the length and breadth of this country.