Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will not be supporting the amendments. We've only just received them in the last few minutes. If Senator Xenophon was serious about these amendments then he would have at least started some meaningful discussions about them. We don't believe the provisions suggested by Senator Xenophon would assist in fostering genuine political communications. As Senator Cormann noted, if you don't like the contents of the robocall, you can simply hang up.

The Australian Electoral Commission is provided with significant powers in this bill, as a result of the work of the JSCEM committee. I'm not sure whether any member of the Xenophon team seriously participated in that process, but those people who did so have come forward with a significant and meaningful piece of legislation. As I said, the Australian Electoral Commission is provided with significant powers in this bill to determine the intricacies of political authorisation, and we trust that it will do so appropriately.