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

The opposition will be opposing this amendment. There has been no case made for it. There has been no evidence presented to support this amendment. The Labor Party supported a previous amendment seeking to oppose an increase in the level of tax deductibility. We do not, however, object to the question of tax deductibility for political parties in this country. One of the great things about our system of government is that minority parties—microparties and individual MPs—are never short of getting a headline by abusing politicians. There is never a shortage of opportunities in public life to say that members of parliament effectively should not be paid at all, should not get any resources and should not be provided with any support to undertake their legislative work. There is a mood in the community that we should actually be paying to be here. I take the view that that is a totally inappropriate approach. I know that short-term opportunist methods of attracting public attention might have some short-term appeal. The consequences for the political system, however, are not quite so beneficial.

As I said, you are never short of getting a headline by abusing politicians and politicians’ entitlements. The fact remains that the question of tax deductibility for contributions to political parties—as for churches and a number of other charity organisations in this country—is always open to attack, if you are so inclined. But you have to put a case for it rather than try to run some cheap populist line, which will get you a run on the ABC—or in the Murdoch press, because there is plenty of scope in the Murdoch press to attack politicians. It will not necessarily improve your standing because people in the public at large actually understand these questions and understand what cheap politics is involved.