John Madigan (Victoria, Democratic Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move my amendment to the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Improving Electoral Procedure) Bill 2012 on sheet 7281:

(1) Schedule 2, items 4 and 5, page 19 (lines 6 to 9), omit the items, substitute:

4 Subsection 170(3)

           Repeal the subsection, substitute:

(3) For the purposes of paragraphs (2)(b) and (c), the sum to be deposited by or on behalf of a person nominated for an election (the nomination fee) is:

  (a) to be determined using the table in this subsection; and

  (b) to be in legal tender or in a cheque drawn by a bank or other financial institution on itself.

(4) The nomination fee for an indexation year is the amount (rounded down to the nearest dollar) worked out using the following formula:

Indexation factor for indexation year × Nomination fee for previous financial year

where:

           indexation factor means the indexation factor for the indexation year under subsection (5).

           nomination fee for previous financial year means:

  (a) for a person nominated as a Senator—the nomination fee for the previous financial year for a person nominated as a Senator; and

  (b) for a person nominated as a member of the House of Representatives—the nomination fee for the previous financial year for a person nominated as a member of the House of Representatives.

(5) The indexation factor for an indexation year is the number worked out using the following formula:

where:

           index number, for a quarter, means the All Groups Consumer Price Index number, being the weighted average of the 8 capital cities, published by the Australian Statistician in respect of the quarter.

(6) The indexation factor is to be calculated to 3 decimal places, but increased by .001 if the fourth decimal place is more than 4.

(7) Calculations under subsection (5):

  (a) are to be made using only the index numbers published in terms of the most recently published reference base for the Consumer Price Index; and

  (b) are to be made disregarding index numbers that are published in substitution for previously published index numbers (except where the substituted numbers are published to take account of changes in the reference base).

(8) In this section:

           indexation year means the financial year starting on 1 July 2017, and each subsequent financial year.

Listening to the debate over the last half an hour or so, I do not doubt that the major parties do not think that there is any problem in seeking to double the fees for nomination for both the House of Representatives and the Senate when they share in $51-odd million of electoral funding between them.

Sitting here today and listening to the debate, I know that the House is full of a lot of economic rationalists, but now we have democratic rationalists. Who are you to exclude people from the political process? What is your empathy for how hard it is for small and minor parties and independents to get the funding needed to run a campaign? In my case in Victoria, my whole campaign was run on $20,000-odd.

The fact is that we have a sad day here today, where an amendment to stagger the nomination fees to have incremental increases over four years, instead of a big hit, for the minor and smaller parties and for the independents will probably be defeated in the chamber. As I said earlier, I am under no doubt now as to why the duopoly that we face in the retail sector is now on the verge of being cemented in the political process.