Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to indicate on behalf of the Labor opposition that we will be supporting Senator Murray’s disallowance motion. In doing so, I will perhaps be a little more cynical than Senator Murray was. While I agree with him that there are important points of principle at stake here, there is also a great deal of cynicism and political advantage for the government contained in these propositions and, in particular, in the totality of what has occurred in recent months in terms of total entitlements that are available for members of the House of Representatives to use effectively in campaigning for their own re-election. I want to come to that because I think that in debating these changes today we have to look at the totality of the changes to entitlements that have been advanced by this government in recent times. They go to staff, printing, postage and charter—a whole range of increases in entitlements that are tightly targeted to advantage the government and to advantage incumbents. Not only does it raise questions of the use or abuse of taxpayers’ money but also it raises questions of the government setting out on a deliberate campaign to entrench incumbents, to use the power of office to protect people’s political interests. While there is always an element of that, in that sitting members have advantages, the extent of the advantage is getting well beyond a joke. It is starting to interfere, I think, with the proper democratic processes that should be available in this country, where people of any political party or an Independent can nominate and stand a fair chance of being elected by arguing their policies and platform in an election context.

Senator Murray’s motion seeks to disallow Determination 2006/18: Members of Parliament—Entitlements made by the Remuneration Tribunal last month. These effectively look to allow members representing larger electorates, those of 10,000 square kilometres or more, to aggregate their charter aircraft and self-drive vehicle entitlements with their communications allowances—that is, to pool the money they are allowed to use for charter to get around their electorates—charter by plane or car, despite already having an entitlement to a vehicle or, in some cases, two vehicles—or to pool that charter entitlement with their communications allowance, which is largely postage. So you now have the combining—as Senator Murray quite rightly put it—of two separate allowances into one, aggregating them so that people can use for postage an entitlement which was designed for transport around the electorate. That creates a whole set of problems and a whole set of issues that takes us down a path we do not want to go down, in my view.

This determination also provides for an annual carry-over of this mechanism. So the aggregated entitlement can be carried over to the next year. Of particular interest, of course, is whether or not these entitlements can be carried over into election years to maximise their impact in a year when a member might be looking to focus the electorate’s attention on their desirable qualities, which might lead to their re-election.

There are a number of issues here in the aggregating of allowances and allowing rollovers, which will provide flexibilities and capacities that previously were not available to members of the House of Representatives. Of course, it just happens to be that the overwhelming majority of members of parliament who benefit from this entitlement—26 out of a total of 33—are coalition members, so a huge advantage will flow from these measures to Liberal and National Party members of parliament. Twenty-six out of 33 beneficiaries of this are government members—sitting members of parliament who are up for re-election next year and who will have a significant increase in the resources available to them for campaigning in their electorates for their re-election.

This determination provides that more than one-quarter of all coalition members of parliament will benefit from what is becoming an extravagant and excessive set of entitlements. More than one-quarter of coalition members of parliament will now receive a massive boost to their entitlements in addition to those that have gone before in recent times—a set of entitlements that have generally been refused by the Senate before the change in the balance of power in the Senate. Most of these measures that have come before us in recent months have previously been rejected in one form or another by the Senate because senators, on balance, have found them to be not justified.

I want to make the point that I recognise that this decision, the subject of the disallowance motion, was made by the Remuneration Tribunal. It is different from a number of other issues that have been brought before us, because they have been brought before us by a decision of the Special Minister of State, Mr Nairn. It does provide me with some difficulty because I have always argued that the Remuneration Tribunal should be put in charge of all politicians’ pay and conditions; I have always thought it is not something that we ought to determine ourselves. Senator Brown and I have crossed swords on this more recently, but I take the view that no employee and no set group of people, including company directors, ought to set their own pay and conditions. The record across all occupations has not been good at getting the balance right, and I suspect that we will not be any better at getting the balance right than any other group. And, of course, one is left exposed to the criticism of whatever one does—there are never any votes in politicians’ pay and conditions—and I am not one who encourages the cheap populism by some of my colleagues on these issues. However, the reality is that this is slightly different because it is a Remuneration Tribunal decision, and I accept that, and it puts me in a difficult position because I have always supported their having control over these issues as an independent body free from any self-interest in these matters.

But I do not think you can look at this decision in isolation. I do not think we can just say, ‘Oh, well, it’s a Remuneration Tribunal decision and we ought to pass no further comment,’ because what we have seen over recent months is step after step that has built incumbency for this government and its members. There has been a deliberate strategy to increase entitlements that strengthen the capacity of incumbents to be re-elected. Even if you do not accept my argument about how it favours sitting members and coalition members—although this time it is unarguably the case—there is a broader principle such that even if it were of great benefit to Labor members I would argue against it. The principle is that our democracy thrives on the capacity of small parties and Independents to contest elections. If you get to the American stage, where the capacity for people to stand for election and participate in the democratic process is limited so much by financing issues, it will be a very sorry day for our democracy.

But what we are focusing on here today is the latest in a group of decisions which seek to entrench incumbent members and to finance their activities from the public purse. Taxpayers’ money will be used to increase entitlements for members to promote themselves during an election period. We have to think very carefully whether we accept the government’s arguments. The Remuneration Tribunal made a decision in relation to these specific matters and I do not have any information on the arguments that were put before them. I do not know why it was restricted to 33 members but clearly it was argued as part of an attempt to make a case for those servicing larger electorates.

The letter from the Special Minister of State, Gary Nairn, which he sent to all senators and members, explained what the new determination means. When it referred to the electorate charter entitlements for all senators and members it always used plurals: House of Representatives members and senators. I read through it and I went back and had a second read. Suddenly the word ‘senators’ was dropped out of the key paragraph; ‘senators’ went missing in action. Some would say we do this all the time! Interestingly enough these changes that are warranted, according to the minister, do not apply to senators.

I come from Western Australia; I have a pretty large electorate, as does Senator Murray. Senator Brown is more favourably treated because of the size of his electorate, but I come from a massive state which I have to get around. So if the argument is based on size of electorate, then clearly senators from Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia ought to receive the same sort of treatment. But they will not. We suddenly drop out of the picture. We receive all the other changes in entitlements such as travelling allowance and some of the charter allowance but, when it comes to aggregating that entitlement and combining it with a communications allowance, the arguments that support this important proposition suddenly no longer apply to senators. I do not for the life of me know why. If they are not politically motivated reasons, I cannot see any other reason that would justify senators disappearing from this calculation.

If it really is about the size of the electorate, if it really is about allowing people to communicate, why not let Senator Murray communicate more easily with the Western Australian population; why not allow me, why not allow the Queensland senators? Because it is very much about entrenching incumbency. It is very much about providing a set of entitlements to sitting lower house members that allows them to campaign using Commonwealth-funded, taxpayer-funded resources. So when we look at the question of abrogation and the combination with their entitlements for charter with their communications allowance, the senators disappear. This measure alone applies to 33 House of Representatives members, 26 of whom just happen to be coalition members.

It takes me back a couple of months to when we had the debate about the printing entitlement. There was a real need to allow members of parliament to communicate more effectively with their electors by increasing their printing allowance so that they would be able to produce more material and communicate more easily. But again senators were left out of the equation. The printing entitlements for House of Representatives members were greatly increased—I think by $25,000 per annum, if my memory serves me correctly—but again senators were not to benefit. I do not say this jealously because I do not think the increase was justified. I argued against it then and I will argue against this increase now. There is no logic underpinning this. This is about politics, not about servicing one’s electorate effectively. If that were your rationale, then the differences that we are seeing in the approach to the House of Representatives members and to senators would be vastly different and would not reflect the sort of approach that we are seeing from the government.

To sum up, I want to look at what this means in reality for the government’s funding of these extra entitlements for parliamentarians to use in communicating with their members. Recently, we had an increase in staff entitlement, an increase in relief budget beyond the three staff to 24 weeks. What I regard as the outrageous increase in printing entitlement—$25,000 per annum—passed through this place a couple of months ago. We now have an increase of 10 per cent in the charter capacity for those with large electorates—and senators on this occasion. And of course we have an increase in postage. What runs through all these decisions is increased entitlement and aggregation—that is, the capacity to use the entitlements in different and creative ways, to use them as a sole resource for campaigning. There is an increase in the capacity to roll over from one year to another so that the measures can be concentrated into a particular year. The other theme is that it applies only to the House of Representatives. So you have increasing entitlement, the ability to throw them into one bucket and the ability to roll them over from one year to the next. End result: tremendous capacity to spend taxpayers’ resources on your own re-election in an election year. That is the sum of all this.

That is the theme underpinning all these changes. While on occasions one can argue for flexibility and argue that people will use these resources, the bottom line is that step after step the government is increasing resources available to it and to its members to campaign for their re-election. Put that on top of the electoral law changes where we are now allowed to make donations of $9,999 without disclosure and you are seeing a trend, a government approach to the electoral system which ought to be opposed.

As I pointed out earlier, the government did not get away with these changes before the Senate majority changed because the Senate took very sensible decisions about not allowing abuses to occur. The Senate sought to protect the integrity of the electoral system and the integrity of our democracy. They are being whittled away step by step. In fact at the moment it is less a whittling and more an avalanche. If you look at what has occurred in the last year you see that there is a very serious campaign on to cash up House of Representatives members before the next election. They are targeting entitlements more and more. This effectively targets 26 of the 33 members in larger electorates and, as I say, provides extra entitlement and extra capacity to over a quarter of the coalition contingent in the House of Representatives.

I support public funding, but I support it the proper way—by funding political parties to help meet the cost of campaigning. These allowances form a second stream of public funding that is done under the table, without justification, and is starting to really undermine some of the principles of our democracy which are worth defending. It is entrenching the government, entrenching sitting members and giving them huge advantages.

I did some calculations. I do not want to pick on Mr Barry Haase but I had a look at Kalgoorlie and at my own seat. Mr Haase’s printing entitlement is now up to $150,000. He can roll over 45 per cent of that. So as a result of the measure the government put through a few months ago his total is a staggering possible $217,500 taxpayer-funded printing allowance in an election year. His communications allowance or postage, based on the number of electors at the last election, is now about $81,000 for two years worth of postage. He has the capacity to spend $81,000 on postage in an election year, plus under this measure he is allowed to take 100 per cent of the election year’s charter allowance, plus 20 per cent of last year’s charter allowance. So 120 per cent of his charter allowance is able to be used for postage. That is a staggering $95,000 extra made available, potentially, for Mr Haase. He has a total possible communications or postage allowance in an election year of $176,000 and $217,000 worth of printing.

The member for Kalgoorlie has $393,500 at his disposal to spend on his re-election in an election year, if he chooses to do so. This is not money that he has raised by using the new electoral laws that allow him to raise money without telling anyone where he gets the money from; this is $393,500 of taxpayers’ money that the government is allowing him to use to campaign for himself. I pity some poor Independent wanting to run for election in Kalgoorlie. They would not have the staff, the cars or the offices—and I use the plural word ‘offices’—and they certainly would not have the $393,500 of taxpayers’ money before they began. That is a pretty good start for Mr Haase in Kalgoorlie, it is a pretty good start for the other 33 members who are beneficiaries of these changes and it will certainly be a pretty good start for the 26 coalition members who will benefit at the next election. These changes are not good for our democracy, they are not good for encouraging participation and they ought to be opposed. (Time expired)