Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Sometimes working in this chamber feels a bit like The Truman Show with cameras, live broadcasting and people looking down on you. What would you make of this government and this debate today if you were a member of the public, looking in from the outside? This is a government, I would point out, which has lost the faith of the public faster than any other first-term government in the last 40 years. I will tell you what I think it looks like. If you are a powerful organisation in this country, you have money and you donate it to this government—the Liberals or National Party—they will use this place to deliver for you. If you want a return to a free-for-all system of financial commissions and a winding back of consumer protections to help your business—ignoring recent disasters and the damage done to consumers of financial services, such as the collapse of Storm Financial or the government's disastrous managed investment schemes—all you have to do is donate. And guess what? The Liberals and Nationals will deliver. If it looks obvious that backroom deals have been done on these FoFA reforms—with the industry lobbyists so favoured by this government—then why wouldn't there be special favours for other legislation in front of this parliament?

If you do not like a mining tax because it nibbles at your superprofits and you donate, then the Liberals and Nationals will deliver. If you run a polluting power plant and you do not want to pay for the damage that burning fossil fuels cause to our environment and you donate, then the Liberals and Nationals will deliver. If you think the government is here to prioritise the delivery of health care or education or a future free from climate shocks, then this government is not for you. Why? I suspect there are no donations in these issues for the Liberal-National government. I have said it till I have been blue in the face: our political system is corrupted and undermined by rent-seeking special interests—vested interests—seeking to influence political decisions, regardless of the impact on the public good or public interest. Ross Gittins, one of the country's most experienced economic writers, has written several excellent articles on this subject recently.

Looking from the outside in, it is as if the executive government of Australia operates in a closed loop of special interests, lobbyists, staffers, ex-politicians, corporate rent-seekers and donations. It largely occurs in secret, undisclosed or vaguely disclosed years after the fact. The Australian public will not even know who donated to this government in the lead-up to the last federal election until February 2015.

The proposed winding back of FoFA reforms are a classic case. The previous government's proposal delivered sensible reforms to financial advice legislation to stop runaway rorts like Storm Financial, remove conflicts of interest in commissions and provide some simple consumer safeguards. Contrary to what Senator Cormann told the Senate today, there is nothing complex about understanding conflicts of interest or how they undermine consumer rights.

Speaking of conflicts of interest, this government is directly embroiled in its own conflict of interest in this debate today—explaining donations from the big end of the finance town directly to decision makers able to influence FoFA reforms. The lead proponent for the case against the previous government's FoFA reforms was the Financial Services Council. They represent many of the banks—and AMP, as mentioned earlier by Senator Bishop—that said they stood to lose from the original reforms and that they opposed them. So they naturally sought to influence the result in their members' favour. Other than submissions and direct lobbying, one way it would appear to have tried to influence the debate and the positions of the major parties is through political donations.

Over the last few years, not including the recent donations that have yet to be disclosed, the Financial Services Council donated over $42,000 to the major parties. These donations were not just general donations to the head office; they were targeted to the major relevant financial policyholders at the time in each party. The donations were: $11,000 to Joe Hockey's electorate fundraising arm; to Mr Tony Smith, the then shadow parliamentary secretary for tax reform; to Chris Bowen's local re-election fund; to the electorate of the then Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury; and $10,000 to—guess who?—Senator Cormann. These were not donations towards good public policy, as Senator Cormann would have you believe, but rather they were donations targeted and tailored towards influencing the people who had the power to make decisions about financial policy in this country—policy which could influence their members' profits. Two of the four people, Senator Cormann and Mr Smith, who authored the coalition's dissenting report into the FoFA changes, received sizeable donations from the Financial Services Council.

I encourage all members of this place and the public to read the coalition's dissenting report on FoFA reforms. Seemingly, the Financial Services Council wrote it. Their views are mentioned often enough in it. I am not saying directly that the coalition's position on FoFA is entirely due to donations; I am sure there is an unhealthy dose of free market ideology thrown into the bargain as well. But it sure looks bad to those watching us on TV. How could the public draw any other conclusion? The Greens have long been calling for greater transparency with donations and with lobbying. The public has a right to know the target of donations or lobbying efforts that seek to influence decisions on public policy.

Maybe it is not the Truman show today, rather it is groundhog day. Again, we are debating legislation brought in by this government to look after the big end of town. We have now had months of debate on the carbon bill repeals. It is legislation that is designed to prop up the big, dirty polluters and their profits that are threatened by a jobs rich, emerging, clean energy industry—all in the face of the dire need for immediate, strong and real action on climate change. And then there is the repeal bill for the tax on mining industry superprofits. Again, the Liberal-National government are looking after the big end of town, their mates and their donors, and are supporting the rent-seeking, profit-chasing obsession of the big miners, who are determined to put the tens of billions of dollars of profits they make, most of which goes overseas and does not stay in Australia, ahead of small businesses, superannuants and the broader Australian community.

And let us not forget modern trade deals, the so-called free trade deals under negotiation, and the push by the biggest, most powerful global corporations in the world to have Trojan Horse clauses added to these trade deals—the ISDS clauses or investor state dispute settlement clauses. These give corporations legal rights to sue sovereign governments if their future legislative changes impact on their future profits. Even the Howard government would not consider the inclusion of such clauses in their trade deals. Under this government, where anything goes if you are a wealthy corporation and have influence, such dangerous clauses are on the negotiating table.