Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Bob Brown never would have done it. He never would have done a deal with the coalition in this way. Bob Brown was true to his principles. Coming back to the issue, because I got distracted by the interjections from the Greens—no wonder they are interjecting—it is bizarre that they have not included more comprehensive reforms if they are so serious about this issue. We know that the Greens under Senator Di Natale's leadership are not particularly good at negotiation. You only have to look at the free pass the Greens gave the government on multinational tax avoidance, where more than 600 companies escaped scrutiny by companies not being required to disclose information. That is the way they could have assisted that debate. What did they get out of the dirty deal with the government? They say nothing but if that is the case it is surprising at the least.

Labor has a longstanding policy position on this, including our current platform commitments, which state among other provisions that Labor encourages public debate about reform of our electoral laws, including enrolment and electoral participation. We also looked at how we could introduce a new scheme to regulate political financing, including donations, other revenue expenditure and recordkeeping, and legislation to require public disclosure of political donations over $1,000. If you want transparency in your political system, then ensure that you have public disclosure rather than blanket bans on such a broad and unidentified group such as what this bill tries to achieve. I would have thought one of the divining principles of the Greens was transparency, and there is also accountability and I would have thought freedom of speech. This bill would trample across freedom of political communication, not with the little elephant feet that the Greens might have but with a D9—it would bulldoze the provision.

We hear from the Greens that the High Court decision justifies them doing all of this in some way. I would like to have heard a properly reasoned argument for how you translate the High Court case of McCloy & Ors v State of New South Wales, in respect of property developers, into this broad and undefined group that we now have in this bill. I would like to have heard that argument but I did not get the opportunity to hear it at all. It seems that somehow we can start off with a little bit here and broaden it out as wide as we want without any fetter. But there is a fetter, which I will come to in a moment. The Labor Party brought forward a bill for comprehensive donations reform in 2009 which was opposed by the coalition. I am surprised the Greens want to talk about electoral reform in a week when they have voted with the government over a dozen times to prevent proper consideration and debate on the most significant electoral reforms in 30 years, including voting against referrals for committees of inquiry.

I am now, like Mr Abbott, flabbergasted—I will not talk about subs—because the deal that the Greens have now done with the coalition is breathtaking in its hypocrisy. This is a party that has prided itself on ensuring that there is proper process in this place. As Manager of Government Business in the Senate, many a time I asked former Senator Bob Brown to expedite passage and do things that I needed done, but he wanted to ensure always that there was a proper principled approach to anything he did. Former Senator Brown used to always refer to us major parties as the grand old parties, in a very derogatory and sometimes demeaning way. I accept that that is criticism we sometimes get, but the Greens kept themselves pure from that argument. They said they would only address matters on principle. What we now have I think are the new Greens—the old Greens are dead and gone. The new Greens are prepared to creep to the centre and the centre left and be the new democrats—so perhaps it is in the position of green democrats that they now sit. It is a party that is willing to sacrifice its principles and sacrifice procedure in this place, sacrifice true process, to achieve a political end that benefits them. That is what they are now doing. It is clear and very simple.

This new bill that they are bringing in is no better. It seeks to wipe out a broad area which is not even taking into account what they stand for. They stand for freedom of political communication, I suspect, but the new Greens do not any more. The new Greens say the way forward is to ban things, to ensure that you do not get freedom of political communication. They want to ensure that you have Senate reform which excludes 3.3 million people from participating in our electoral system. The new Greens stand for regulation, bans and anything else that ensures we put a fetter on our political system. That is what the new Greens stand for. It is quite stunning.

Already the Greens have lined up with the coalition—they are starting to look very comfortable sitting over there with them—to ensure there is no scrutiny, there is no proper process, and they bleat that because of a JSCEM report they have the right to fast track the most major change in our electoral system in 30 years.

They are a non sequitur when it comes to that. It does not and cannot follow that a report gives you that ability at the end of the day without proper process. If that were the case, there are many reports that are gathering dust in the Senate library which we could take, pick up, throw across and drop on the table and say, 'We all need to vote for that now.' We do not see that, but we have seen it on this occasion. They seek to justify it, but I have not seen a fair justification, quite frankly. But they do think that you can shortcut the proper scrutiny of legislation. The only party that was doing that up to now was the coalition. They did it with Work Choices and they did it with the Telstra one-day hearing. They have done it all the time.

The new Greens have now joined that ability to cut the scrutiny off at the knees. I say 'the new Greens' because I think it is a bit rich that they come into the chamber now proposing political donations reform when they could have made this part of their dirty deal with the government on Senate voting reform. Apparently, they did not even secure a written agreement from the government, as Senator Cormann's response to the Senate's order for the production of documents relating to the agreement between the Greens and the government indicated. I am flabbergasted that they insist on documents with Labor, but with the coalition—their buddy, their chums—they do not need one. They will rely on the coalition's goodwill to ensure they will get an outcome. I would have thought that is particularly naive of the new Greens. But, never mind, it is their agreement.

If the Greens were serious about political donations reform, they would include the elements contained in this bill, as amended, in the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill, and they would ensure that it had proper process, it went through a proper committee system and you had significant submitters that could have sufficient time to provide advice and interest to the legislation. You would also ensure that you went to various parts of Australia to make sure the Australian people understood what was going to occur and how our system was going to change and had an opportunity to ask questions and ventilate the issue more fully. But they did not. The new Greens cut that off, just like this bill that is before us today It was given a very broadbrush approach. Ban it, because that is the simplest and easiest way forward.

Labor has already circulated amendments that address key matters relating to political donations reform, including reducing the donations disclosure threshold from $13,000 to $1,000, banning foreign political donations, banning anonymous donations above $50 to registered political parties and limiting donation splitting that evades disclosure requirements. Because they only have an unwritten agreement with the coalition, I would encourage the Greens to amend it to include some of these serious issues and give sufficient time for them to be explored to make that we get appropriate amendments to the legislation.

I wanted to come back to Senator Rhiannon's broad approach that the legislation banning property developers in New South Wales somehow allows this bill some semblance of fairness. The difficulty there is that there was very good reason and clear evidence to ban property developers in New South Wales.

Senator Rhiannon interjecting

The High Court found on that evidence that they could do that because it is a proportionate response. There is a two-step test in Lang, which they relied on. I do not have the time to go through it but, if Senator Rhiannon is encouraging me to read the legislation, I would also encourage her to read Lang and understand how you cannot put a burden on the freedom of political communication. This bill will do just that. Whether or not you agree with the principles contained within it, what you would want to ensure is that you have a bill that actually would survive a High Court challenge. The way this bill is currently drafted, as broad and as wide as it is, would not at all. The way that Senator Rhiannon is mischievously arguing—that, because you can ban political donations in New South Wales, it follows that you can then ban just about everybody you can think of—is wrong. (Time expired)