Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Oh, he is worried now about the anonymity of a koala suit person collecting money in the street as against what is going to happen here. My colleague Senator Milne will show some of the potential expansion of hidden donations that will come out of this. I do not know, but I think Senator Abetz may be able to enlighten us on the process, because there is a lot more to be discovered and at least challenged in the course of this debate.

But what are we to do with an electoral system where there is the encouragement of large amounts of money and multiple amounts of money going to political parties and not being accountable? And here we go from $1,500 to $10,000. I would point out to Senator Murray, who has been making such a positive contribution to the defence against this terrible legislation today and tonight, that the wording that is now used in the legislation is such that you have to account for gifts et cetera which are valued at more than $10,000. So, under this law, you can give $10,000 and not have to account for it, but if you give $10,000.05 you have to. That is because the old system, which said that amounts of less than $1,500 required you not to give $1,500 or you had to account for it, was a bit awkward.