Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry; my apologies, Mr Acting Deputy President—through you: Senator Lambie, it would be lovely to have a sugar daddy like this, wouldn't it? They stand condemned by their own actions and deeds.

And, Senator Rhiannon, I have not seen you stand up and say, 'Let's not accept a donation of over $1,000 from an individual.' I have not seen you stand up and say that. 'Developers? Yeah, that's okay. High-end gamblers? We'll take their money—$585,000.' So the Greens stand condemned—condemned by their own actions and deeds. And no amount of trumped-up moral outrage can hide the Greens' hypocrisy. So I look forward to seeing how you justify accepting these huge donations from two or three individuals.

Of course, the Greens are not alone in adopting a shambolic approach to donation reform. While Labor has been clear and consistent in our approach, the Liberals are hopelessly divided. I have said this before, Mr Acting Deputy President, but I am not surprised the Liberal Party sent Senator Bernardi to New York, to the UN, because this is what he has had to say on a multitude of issues; I am just going to pick on one today. He said:

It's wrong for substantial amounts of money from foreign entities in non-democratic governments to flow into [the] Australian body-politic.

Well, you do not want to ban those. Mr Pyne said, 'No, we don't want to ban those.' I will bet I know why. I bet you want to extend his holiday, using a foreign donation—anything to keep him out of the country, Senator Back, anything!

As to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, what a week we have seen from him while the Prime Minister was overseas! Former Prime Minister Abbott got a new lease of life. He said:

… "I think it is time to look at donations reform again.

"We need to look long and hard at restricting donations to real people on the electoral roll. To that end, there should be no union donations, company donations or foreign donations."

Yet, astonishingly, as I have already alluded to, the government's Leader in the House, Mr Pyne, has said that he is 'unfussed about foreign donations'—'unfussed'! Well, let me tell you: I saw a poll today that showed that Mr Pyne is in a category of 12 per cent of Australians, with the other 88 per cent going, 'Just a minute. We're not "unfussed" about receiving foreign donations!'

Then again, yesterday, here in the chamber, Senator Ryan said that he was:

… a believer that people who want to make a contribution to our political process should be able to do so.

So they are running up the barricades. They had a lot of fun at Senator Dastyari's expense over the last two weeks. But, when it came to actually making a difference, they started to dig a hole, and they are going to barricade themselves and put the wagons around.

Perhaps it is okay, because the foreign minister wants to see hundreds of thousands of dollars continue to flow into the coffers of the Western Australian Liberal Party from Chinese-linked companies that do not even have any business in Western Australia. You have to ask yourself: why does a Chinese company with zero business interests in Western Australia donate nearly $600,000 to the Western Australian branch of the Liberal Party? Senator Smith, I see you smiling over there. Is it your winning smile? I am afraid I suspect not. But perhaps— (Time expired)