Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was really interesting to listen to Senator Smith talk about corruption today. He did not mention his friend from the Liberal Party Mr Damien Mantach pleading guilty to massive amounts of stealing. Let's not forget that.

Let's look at what the Labor Party have done. Our policy states that we want to regulate political donations. Our policy states that we want to reduce the cap in the donations disclosure law. When last in government, we put up electoral reform that included looking at political donations. What happened? The Liberal-National Party, along with some of the crossbench senators, knocked that on the head. So do not come to us talking about corruption and political donations.

Let's look at where we are up to with this grubby little deal and what the Greens have traded away. Recent history demonstrates that, when it comes to deal making and economic credentials, the Greens party has well and truly got its L-plates on. They dipped their toes in murky water in a grubby deal with the government to disenfranchise around 330,000 part-pensioners. The Greens changed the asset test for these pensioners, cutting their household budgets, meaning they have less to live on.

On the last day of sitting in 2015, another dirty deal was done on the cheap with the government on company tax. Despite their rhetoric of being tough on tax, the Greens failed to gain any tangible transparency in their deal. It increases the threshold for companies, allowing them to continue to trade behind closed doors and avoid paying their fair share of tax. The explanation from the Greens leader was interesting. He said it was the best deal they could do at the time. The government was desperate to get that bill through, but the Greens failed to take advantage of that and settled for an inadequate deal. I would like to hear from the Greens about when they think the Australian parliament might have a better chance of getting a fair and transparent deal, in fact, the deal that Labor wanted to hold out for. Surely, that time is when the government is desperate to get a bill through. Quite frankly, I think a two-year-old having a tantrum would be a better negotiator than the Greens.

This latest dirty deal enables the government to pull the DD trigger and wipe out the crossbench. This deal will actually disadvantage the millions of Australians who choose to vote for Independents and small parties. There is nothing honourable in this bill, which has incorrectly been titled 'electoral reform'. There is only one change in this bill, and that is to gerrymander Senate voting.

Once again, the Greens have shown themselves to be either inept negotiators or so drunk on power that they missed the obvious opportunity for real electoral reform in the bill of the same name. Today they have the gall to front the Senate with their matter of public importance, and, guess what, it is about electoral reform! Suddenly, after the Greens had done their dirty deal with the government to wipe out crossbench senators, they come into this very place with an urgency motion calling for immediate action on political donations. I do not know how they can lie straight in bed at night! Perhaps not all of the Greens were in on the dirty deal with the government, but, however they played it with the government, they should have included this alleged urgent action on political donation reform in their dirty deal in return for supporting a move to wipe out the crossbench.

This stunt today by the Greens party, trying to salvage some political capital after they sold their souls to the devil on a bill which locks out any minority view other than their own, will be seen by the Australian public for what it is. It is a grab for power and a dirty deal done with a government that are clearly frustrated with the crossbench and Labor. It is much harder to get rid of us. It is easy to get rid of the crossbench in a dirty deal with the Greens, who cannot even negotiate to put political donations reform into the package they did with a government desperate to do a deal. Once again, they fail. They get a little way along, and then they just cave in. Well done to the government! They will not love you in the morning; they do not even love you now! I say to the Greens: you have been hoodwinked once again on major reform. You simply caved in. You sold your soul to the devil, and Australians will see straight through it.