David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I will respond very briefly to some of the particular points made by Senator Xenophon that were not picked up in my earlier response. Senator Xenophon obviously took interest in one particular facet of my remarks and that went to, I guess, the integrity of our electoral system and making sure that candidates are there with a bona fide purpose. My only point would be that the regulatory regime that the parliament has prescribed for elections deals with most of the matters you talked about, in the parts of the bill that deal with registration of political parties. As you would be familiar with, there is a requirement that for a party to be registered it must collect 500 names. There are various other obligations. Once a political party is successfully registered, it has an entitlement to receive public moneys and to have the name of the party appear on the ballot paper. Those obligations upon and rights of registered political parties and the general regime that applies to registered political parties deal with most of the points you are making. I think that is an area of governance where our political system has the issue amply covered.