Glenn Lazarus (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I will be supporting this amendment and I agree wholeheartedly with all of its elements. I should note that I am all for Senate voting reform, as I feel the system needs to be simplified to make it easier for the people of Australia to participate in our system of democracy, but I am of the view that the reforms proposed as part of the dirty deal between the Greens and the coalition are an extreme form of reform which will crucify democracy in this country. As a result, I will be putting up a range of amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016 to try and improve the proposed changes. However, I am not confident these will be properly considered given the dirty deal between the Greens and the coalition has already been done. It is clear that the Greens only like to support transparency and process when it suits them to attack everybody else. Despite voting reforms, I also strongly believe that our system of democracy needs to be more transparent and there needs to be more accountability around government decision making, which is why I will be supporting this particular amendment.

I think most Australians would agree with me when I say that most people do not trust politicians and they do not have confidence in our political system. Having been in this place now for just under two years, I can understand why people feel this way. I shake my head at many of the things that happen in this place. When we see elected officials—such as the Turnbull government, who were voted in to lead our country safely into the future—making decisions which are not in the best interests of Australians, this hardly generates trust across the country. I am talking about the decisions like allowing 1.2 million 457 visa holders from other countries into our country to take our jobs while the number of unemployed Australians sits at around 800,000. I am talking about decisions such as the Turnbull government's decision to award a $2 billion Australian Defence Force shipbuilding contract to a Spanish company, which will generate 3,000 jobs in Spain and decimate the Australian shipbuilding and maritime industry across our nation. I am talking about decisions like allowing CSG mining companies to come onto people's land and destroy their properties, water, health, land values and farming businesses while landholders have absolutely no right to say no. I am talking about decisions by government such as allowing farmers and hardworking decent Australians across rural and regional Queensland to suffer due to unprecedented drought while the government supports pipelines to be built from one part of the country to the other to move gas, while water sits idly in reserves in South-East Queensland dams—water which should be moved to where it is desperately needed.

I am talking about decisions such as allowing the Chinese and other countries to buy up significant chunks of our land, including key agricultural land and farms, which take away Australian jobs for Australian workers and the opportunity for Australia to produce its own food and sell it to the rest of the world for a fair price; decisions which allow the Chinese and other countries to set up large coalmines in the middle of our country's key agricultural food bowl on the Liverpool Plains, which will affect the integrity of our underground water supply and in turn risk the viability of our farms and people's livelihoods; decisions which involve the sell-off of our major ports and other infrastructure to the Chinese, including ports which house our Navy vessels; and decisions which allow areas of North Queensland to suffer at the hands of job losses and high unemployment while fat cats sit comfortably in their offices in Parliament House oblivious to the pain and suffering people are experiencing right across our country. I could go on, but the decisions are depressing and leave people wandering what on earth our elected officials are doing.

I certainly wonder this myself, but unfortunately I have come to realise that most decisions made around here come down to donations, and this is the main reason I support this particular amendment to the bill. I want the issue of donations cleaned up and I want political parties to be held to account for the decisions they make and the reasons they make them. Lowering the donation disclosure threshold from $13,000 to $1,000 is a key means of achieving this and is a good start. It is not going to solve everything, but it is going to start shining a light on what is really going on in governments across the country.

Political transparency is a cornerstone of a free and democratic society. Without transparency there is corruption, deceit, filthy bargaining and self-interest. Transparency should be all about holding public officials to account and enabling free, open and informed debate on political issues. It should also be about ensuring that the right issues are dealt with by the right people and in the right way. Transparency ensures issues that are of importance to the people are addressed and are not kicked under the carpet. It is of critical importance that increased transparency is extended to political donations, because money talks and it is crucial that the people of Australia are fully informed on how donations are impacting on party politics and the decisions governments are making.

I believe making politicians disclose donations of above $1,000 is far better than the current amount of $13,000. The current threshold of $13,000 is a lot of money. The average income earner in Australia receives around $70,000 a year. Average Australians are not going to make political donations of $13,000, unless there is something really shady going on. Anyone donating amounts like that is likely to be a very wealthy donor or a corporate donor. I think all Australians have the right to know when a small number of people are influencing politicians and the decisions governments make because they have a large amount of money. I think it is in the public interest to know who is donating large amounts to politicians. If a political party is under no obligation to disclose political donations less than $13,000, donations are able to change hands without being linked to decision making.

Reducing the threshold to $1,000 will increase transparency and enable voters to make more informed decisions regarding who they vote for and why. In short, the people of Australia will have a better idea of who they want to support and why. For example, if a party is taking donations from a mining company, you can bet they will put the interests of the mining company ahead of the interests of the people. Under the current system, the majority of political donations go undisclosed. By reducing the threshold, the Australian public will be privy to a substantially larger pool of data regarding political donations, allowing even more informed decisions to be made.

Further safeguards must also be implemented to ensure that political parties are not abusing the system to avoid their disclosure obligations. In the past, major parties have accepted multiple small donations from the same donor of a total value greater than the threshold, but have waived their disclosure obligations because the donations were taken through different branches. Lowering the threshold to $1,000 would make it far more burdensome for donors to split their donation between branches to avoid disclosure requirements. The amendment before the chamber helps to avoid politicians cheating the system and misleading the public about where their donations come from. Parties have also abused a loophole whereby funds are received by the party's associated entities which then directs funds to the major party.

These dishonest practices greatly diminish political transparency and prevent the Australian people from being fully informed of their party's donors. I believe these changes will improve transparency in Australian politics. By lowering the threshold, a far higher number of donations will be disclosed, giving the voting public unprecedented information to hold their party accountable for policies which favour large corporate donors over their constituents.

I also support the need to place a $50 cap on anonymous gifts or donations. In fact, I would prefer all anonymous gifts or donations to be banned and, if a political party cannot clarify where the donation came from, the money must be given to charity to assist people who need the money. I, like many Australians, think this whole political system stinks. What value is there in allowing large anonymous donations to political parties? Who honestly thinks this practice is in the best interests of public scrutiny? This amendment is an important step in ensuring transparency within our political system.

Despite the real scepticism in the community, many Australians do place a great deal of trust in their elected officials and expect them to do the right thing. So it is very important that we deliver the highest levels of transparency and accountability for these people by placing a $50 limit on anonymous gifts, and by requiring a substantially greater range of political donations have declarations of the donor's name and address. This would ensure that strong records are held of who is contributing financially to each political party. In doing so, political parties could be held to a higher degree of accountability because the record would state precisely where the donations had come from. The other element of this amendment that I support is the banning of foreign donations. I talked earlier about decisions made by government that are not in the national interest. The thing that has sickened me most in this place is that I have watched the coalition government make decisions that have benefited other countries while crucifying our own industries, harming our own people, killing off our own jobs and wiping out our own businesses.

In summary, they have made decisions that are not in our national interest but are in the interest of other countries. I have left Parliament House some days feeling so overwhelmed by the stench of corruption in this place that I have felt sick—sick to my stomach that any government would make a decision based on what benefits a donor from overseas, even if the decision was in direct conflict with what is in the best interests of our nation. I cannot state any more strongly that foreign donations must be banned.