Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The Democrats have noted the support of the Family First Party for a number of our amendments previously, and that should be on the record. They put up a series of amendments that paralleled our own. This one parallels our previous amendment and therefore we obviously support it.

I should say, in arguing with respect to the threshold of tax deductability for political donations—which is to be extended from $100 to $1,500 and will now allow corporates to claim that as well, which they were not able to do in the past—we believe that this proposal is questionable on three grounds. Firstly, there is no evidence that this tax concession is needed and its net effect will be just the loss of general revenue to the government. Secondly, it is a matter of principle that needs to be established, and the policy should be whether political parties should be able to access the same tax concession regime as charities. There is the whole question of not-for-profits, which I do not believe has been properly examined. Political parties fall into the not-for-profit category, as do churches, charities, environmental activists, business think tanks and anybody else who is constituted for a not-for-profit purpose.

So what needs to be thought through is what tax concessions should apply across that whole category. Dealing with these in isolation is a problem, particularly if such concessions do not apply simultaneously to perhaps more-deserving or other deserving community organisations. I am concerned from a tax policy point of view that this is dealt with in isolation of general tax principles. The Liberal case has been that this is justified to reflect community standards and expectations. I am not aware of any surveys, research or anything else to determine what community standards and expectations are with respect to this issue. We agree that tax relief can encourage people to play a role by contributing to the democratic process, whether it is through environmental groups, forestry promotion groups or anything of any sort. But again I make the point that it should operate to general tax principles across the sector and that special interests should only be isolated for good cause. I am pretty sure it has not been done in this case.

In concluding my remarks I want to refer to an email which I received today. I will read the email but I will not give the name, because I have not asked for permission to do so. The email reads:

Dear Senator Murray,

Your speech in the Senate today was quite disappointing. It is no use telling the people that electoral fraud is not taking place in Australia, because after the Hawke Labor Government began changing the electoral laws the loopholes were exploited.

There is even an organisation exposing it, and Dr Amy McGrath has published a book or two on it. Check the H.S. Chapman Society.

When Senator Abetz answered, there was a fact there I had not thought I knew. Anyway, why not click on this link, found on Metacrawler today, and find out what was known to the National Observer way back then?

…     …         …

Senator Abetz also spoke of the imprisonment of a lady, and how an MP left the Queensland parliament but popped up as a Labor apparatchnik in NSW!!! Let’s be dinkum.

Anyone who wants to be a CITIZEN will register to vote, as well as get his/her vehicle licenced, pay his/her telephone bill and other accounts, and generally behave as a good citizen should.

The Electoral staff CAN NOT check as well as process THOUSANDS of last-minute applications by people who do not want to be RESPONSIBLE voters. Hundreds are FAKE applications, sent in by mail, and almost impossible to lead to the culprits.

However, it is WRONG for the Liberals to raise the donations figure. Please, if the next election cleans out the warmongers, please try to get the donations rules back to something like what it was, allowing for cost-of-living increases.

There is an issue that arises there. Firstly, that person does not like raising donations or the tax deductability or anything else, from the last paragraph. But, secondly, I am concerned that, in the heat and passion of the debate yesterday, the minister in my view added fuel to a fire which should not be encouraged—that is, that a section of the community believes, and wishes to believe, that the electoral roll of Australia is open to systemic abuse. I think it is very dangerous to foster that view, and it is a view that has not been previously promoted by the government. I think the minister should take the opportunity to put it to rest.

I answered that email today as follows:

I have sat through every hearing and every Report of every committee examining this area in the last ten years. I know Dr McGrath and her organisation well. I sat on the inquiry into the circumstances in Queensland, which largely concerned the Queensland State (not federal) electoral system. The federal system was pronounced clean by the Government dominated committee.

The fact that fraud occasionally occurs in the federal system is freely acknowledged by everyone, including me. That does not mean it is systemic or endemic. The present law is sufficient to deal with it. Read the Hansard record, Reports, Submissions, Findings into the fraud allegations.

I frequently find that allegations of fraud are bedded in the events and stories that occurred decades ago. The law and its administration has moved on from those days and has long been tightened up.

The idea that the Prime Minister’s Coalition did not win the last four elections fairly because of electoral fraud is fanciful. Fraud did not affect his wins.

Individual cases of fraud do occur. Mass organised fraud does not occur. It has never been accepted by any Committee, by this Government, by the AEC or any Party that fraud has affected any general election or any by-election in any seat or for any candidate.

You obviously don’t agree with me or the AEC but I do suggest you write separately to the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, the Minister of State, the Prime Minister and the AEC Commissioner—ask each of them just two questions. Has any electoral fraud occurred which has affected any general election or any by-election in any seat or for any candidate in any federal election over the last ten years? And secondly ask—in all those elections over the last ten years how many instances of fraud have there been?—you will find it is less than one hundred individual cases in well over 40 million votes cast in the last ten years.

You alleged that there are hundreds of fake applications. If it were that easy, and if the fraud were all by Labor voters, then why isn’t Labor in power? Or are you suggesting Liberal fraud occurs on the same scale and cancels Labor fraud out? Allegations are easy—but where is the evidence? If you have any evidence you should give it to the Police.

We Democrats do not oppose (and have in fact proposed) tighter sensible anti-fraud measures. What we object to are measures disguised as anti-fraud but designed to disadvantage particular voting demographics.

Thank you for letting me know your views.

I have read that into the transcript deliberately because I was concerned that, in the minister’s remarks yesterday, he might have given large sectors of the public the impression that large-scale systemic fraud has altered or affected any election in this country. He might have given the impression that the Prime Minister and this coalition have achieved power illegitimately. I do not accept that. I think they legitimately won the election. I do not think fraud affected any of their results. Neither do I think it affected the results of any other person who has won election in this parliament. I say so based on the evidence offered to me consistently as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters by the AEC and substantial numbers of witnesses. I did want to make those remarks, and I support Senator Fielding’s amendment.