Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to resume my contribution to the debate on the Greens' Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Donations Reform) Bill 2014.

If passed, this bill would stop certain industries, often linked with having a corrupting influence on the political process, from donating to political parties. The Greens' donations reform bill bans political donations from developers and the tobacco, alcohol, gambling and mining industries.

We have targeted these industries as they do have a worrying track record in exercising often inappropriate influence on decision makers. The Greens' New South Wales 'Democracy for Sale' project, started 15 years ago, has put the spotlight on influence peddling associated with corporate bankrolling of parties and candidates. And we are talking big money here. It is very big money and it is certainly why many people become deeply cynical about the political process. Most people do not think that donors give money for no reason; they think there are strings attached. In the past five years the resource sector has donated more than $37 million, the gaming and hotels industry has donated more than $5 million and the property industry has donated more than $10 million to political parties. I am not saying this is illegal, but there is a perception that something is wrong.

ClubsNSW, the peak lobby group for poker machine dominated clubs in New South Wales, donated $20,000 in 2013 to the fundraising body supporting Kevin Andrews. Mr Andrews was leading the Abbott government's poker machine policy at the time. After the Abbott government repealed tough poker machine regulations, ClubsNSW donated another $10,000 to the Liberal Party. Disturbingly, the Menzies 200 Club, a Liberal fundraising vehicle, failed to declare the donation until eight months after the disclosure deadline. I acknowledge that this is not illegal. Making these payments at present is totally legal.

There are other examples that have left people wondering why the money was handed over. Often, if you look at the timing of the money, it becomes quite informative. In 2003, Manildra supported the federal coalition government at the time that key ethanol policy decisions were being made. In 2007, Manildra shifted its support to Labor when New South Wales introduced an ethanol mandate and when it applied for part 3A approval to expand its Shoalhaven starches operations. Just to explain, part 3A became one of the most notorious aspects of the New South Wales Environmental Planning and Assessment Act. It was brought in in a combined vote of Labor, Liberal and National parties and it was part of the watering down of very fine planning laws that were first brought in by the former Labor Wran government in 1979. At the time they were seen as world-class. They are based on the very important approach that public consultation should be the foundation of good planning laws. But what we saw, particularly to the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s, is that each year the Labor government, with the support of the Liberals and Nationals, would amend the legislation and further water it down. Part 3A became known by so many people. We all know it. How many people ever know the name of a section of an act? Part 3A became synonymous with the corrupting influence of donations. The other thing to take from the information I have just shared with you—Manildra giving to the coalition in 2003 and then giving to Labor in 2007—is that you see a trend in donation-giving: it shifts depending on who is on the rise in the electoral stakes; the corporate world shifts their donations to whoever is most likely to win.

In the Democracy for Sale project, when we collated the donations, we found that in 2003—that is when Manildra lobbied the Howard government for an ethanol excise, which was a successful lobbying exercise—they gave nearly $400,000 to the coalition parties. I mentioned how they shifted over to Labor in 2007, a time when they were looking for a favourable decision on some of their plans to expand production in the Shoalhaven area, which is south of Sydney. At that time, in 2007-08, it was a similar amount—nearly $400,000 again to Labor. This is the sort of money exchange that makes people deeply worried about how our electoral funding laws work.

What becomes very relevant when we debate this issue of political donations is a very important High Court case that was held recently. It was a High Court case that arose out of what has been discussed in this chamber a number of times: the impact of ICAC, our corruption watchdog in New South Wales. Eleven or 12 New South Wales Liberal MPs either resigned or had to stop being MPs because of the scandals that they were caught up in. Cases associated with it ended up before the High Court. Former Newcastle Lord Mayor and developer, Jeff McCloy brought the case to the High Court in a bid to overturn a New South Wales law banning developer donations. I remember being at polling booths and having interesting conversations with some Liberals who were really outraged about the laws, saying, 'Our people have done nothing wrong. They're bad laws. It's not their fault that they've broken the laws,' admitting that they had broken the laws by funnelling developer donations through different arms of the party—again breaking the law in New South Wales. So we had the developer cum Lord Mayor taking this case to the High Court. We argued that the ban was at odds with implied freedom of communication under the Constitution. However, the court agreed with the New South Wales government that communication between legislators and voters was not impeded by the donations bans. This is where I want to give emphasis to it. Often, when we talk about bringing in bans on corporations in different industries, people will use this argument very readily: 'It'll be a constitutional risk. People have a right to communicate by giving money.' This High Court case has really put that whole argument to bed. I would argue that governments have an absolute responsibility to move on this issue, and with the High Court case it should be much more apparent that now is the time to do that.

I would argue that what the High Court did was a win for sensible restrictions which seek to enhance the democratic process by reducing the temptations for politicians to act corruptly. The ruling has far-reaching consequences for the regulation of political activity, because it expanded the definition of corruption. This is the great significance of the case: its analysis of corruption itself. Largely, corruption before this High Court case was seen in terms of: you give some money and then you get some benefit from it. I have been involved with the Greens' Democracy for Sale project since it started and, time and time again, we would produce figures that we got from the AEC and the New South Wales Electoral Commission that set out how much money had been given. The next question would be: what did the political parties do? What did the donors receive? I would answer time and time again, 'I don't know if any deals go on behind closed doors and, if they do, what they are.' Here we have seen an expansion in the definition of corruption by the High Court.

To go back to the comment that I just made about when people would ask me I would say 'I don't have examples where money has been handed over and somebody immediately gains a benefit'. What I saw in the 15 years that I have worked on this was the corrupting influence, and you have heard us use that term many times. What we saw was a weakening of laws that would suit the industry that was making the donations. That is why the Greens have worked for a long time for a ban on developer donations and for a ban on the other industries that are often associated with corrupting practices. I would argue that the High Court case has now set this out so clearly. I want to share with you some comments from my New South Wales Greens MP colleague, David Shoebridge, who said:

In the 1970s, when Bob Askin was NSW Liberal Premier, corruption was a pretty simple affair.

Those who wanted a favour from the planning authorities or the police delivered a bundle of cash and the politicians delivered.

I note there are not any squeals from the government side because how corrupt that Liberal government was is on the record. What then has happened is that the High Court describes traditional corruption as 'quid pro quo' corruption. It is where money is handed over for a specific outcome, as I said, to approve a specific development, ignore an illegal betting syndicate or release a well-connected night. That is how it has worked.

This kind of corruption is where money changed hands for a specific outcome. But there is this other form of corruption, the corrupting influence over time particularly with regard to how our parliaments work, and this is where I would very strongly urge, as I have done before, that senators read the High Court case. The High Court case has called the form of corruption, the buying of influence across industries, as 'clientelism'. It is where, according to the High Court:

… office holders will decide issues not on the merits or desires of constituents, but according to the wishes of those that have made financial contributions valued by the office holder.

The High Court also states that consistent patterns of donations:

… compromise the expectation, fundamentals who representative democracy, that public power will be exercised in the public interest.

That is why the bill before us is so important. It is taking one step. We think many more steps need to be made, but it is taking a step that surely we could all agree with. It is not banning all political donations, it is not banning all corporate political donations. It is purely banning donations from industry that have become associated with having a corrupting influence on how we work as decision makers, and that is what we need to focus on. This bill seeks to tackle this form of corruption.

The bill proposed is actually similar to the Mining and Petroleum Industry Political Donations Legislation Amendment (Corruption Risk Reduction) Bill 2015 that has been moved in the NSW parliament by my colleague in the NSW lower house, Greens MP, Jamie Parker. That was in 2015, and in 2014 a Greens MP in the New South Wales upper house, John Key, moved a similar bill.

Now we have had interesting developments. In New South Wales banning developer donations was something that we took up in the early 2000s. I think it was in 2002 that we introduced the first Greens bill to ban developer donations. At the time there was a pretty wild debate in the New South Wales parliament because we had the figures about how many developers were donating to the Liberal, Labor and National parties. They came to a point where, as I remember, Labor were receiving more donations from developers than they were from unions. It was a period of massive development in New South Wales. There was a lot of overdevelopment, which was very destructive of local communities, so communities were agitating and the Greens were taking it up inside the parliament.

When we got to the end of the 2000s, interestingly, Labor were still an office. They started moving because they were recognising there was so much community pressure to take up the issue, and former Premier Morris Iemma was about to bring in the ban on developer donations, as I remember, and it did not occur. I have been critical of Labor, but when they do the right thing we are right there ready to work with them. When Nathan Rees was Premier he brought in a ban on developer donations. Subsequently the coalition also came on board with some of those. Most interestingly, some of those other industries that we have included in our bill were also covered by New South Wales legislation. Again, it is an area where there has been legislation passed. We see that it can work.

With this bill before us I urge senators to look at it closely. It has merit and it could really make a difference to the attitude people have to the political process and to how we work as senators in this place. Reform is urgently needed. It is reform that should be in place before the next election.

To reiterate, the Greens position is that should we should have a ban on donations from for-profit organisations. I recognise that other senators are not at this point. The experience in New South Wales was that the Labor, Liberal and National parties eventually came to the party and recognised that there was a deep problem within the wider community of growing agitation and cynicism about how politics was working. That is why they moved. Within 10 years the Greens went from having huge amounts of abuse heaped on the party because we would name who the donors were. The leaders of the other parties, with the backing their parties, and incredible backing from the community are moving on the very issue that we are considering today. These are issues that I really urge senators give very strong consideration to.

If we take donations from unethical, corrupt, disreputable industries, it will reflect poorly on us. As I said, we are talking about millions and millions of dollars each year that comes in from these industries. There is no excuse, I would argue, for politicians, political parties and candidates to accept or solicit donations from the corporate interests named in this bill. It is time that we clean up how electoral funding works.

Let's remember that these political donations are the icing on the cake in how election campaigns work. I find that people start out quite interested in election campaigns but, as the weeks roll on towards election day, they start to become quite cynical and jaded by the process, with all the attack ads on television and the coloured glossies shoved in their letterboxes. People get over that. If we ended these types of corporate political donations we would still have money to run our election campaigns, but we could get back to doing it on a more level playing field. We would be out there advocating for our election platform, having real debates about what happens to people, listening to the community and responding. We would be out there being committed to and selling our position in our election campaign, not just relying on those attack ads on TV, the coloured glossies and the fancy advertising that the millions of dollars from the private sector pays for.

That is why this can be easily cleaned up. If we are committed to enhancing the democratic process, which surely is something that every parliament should regularly turn its mind to, this should be an area we give top attention. The Greens bill on political donations reform that targets those certain industries—developers and the mining, tobacco, gambling and alcohol industries—is a start. It is not the full job, but it would show there is a commitment to cleaning up the corrupting influence of political donations.