Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

With its package of bills on foreign interference introduced on 7 December last year, it is clear the Turnbull government is determined to undermine civil society, to hamstring it. In fact, the government wants a civil society that is silenced, that is unable to comment on, debate or criticise any government policy. The Turnbull government is continuing the campaign that was started by Mr Howard and continued by Mr Abbott. Mr Turnbull is following in their footsteps. Preventing foreign interference in Australia is important. Indeed, the Greens have long called for a ban on foreign donations to political parties, but the impact of these bills is far-reaching, and they don't fix the problems they seek to address.

The bills I am referring to are the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017, the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Bill 2017 and the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2017. Should they pass, they will negatively affect a vast array of businesses, sectors and organisations in Australia. Charities and not-for-profits in particular will have their hands tied in the work that they can do.

Senator Rex Patrick will shortly be tabling a joint communique from 15 charities who attended a round table hosted by the Greens, NXT and the ALP in February. In their communique, these charities and not-for-profits put it well when they said that the proposed bills:

… conflate advocacy for good policy with political campaigning for elections. The changes would block, obstruct and constrain non-partisan commentary and advocacy on policies by charities, other community organisations and business … the proposed legislation would tear at the fabric of our democracy, unpicking the freedoms that have made our national conversation so rich.

That's just part of the communique that will be tabled. These groups are united in their opposition to the bills and want to see them sent back to the drawing board, with which we concur.

The electoral funding and reform bill, in particular, will make it very difficult, if not impossible, for charities to carry out core parts of their work. Constitutional law professor Ann Twomey has written that the bill relies on a greatly broadened definition of political expenditure, which includes any expenditure on the expression of public views on an issue that is 'likely to be before electors in an election' regardless of when that election is held. Professor Twomey notes that this could include anything from expenditure on ads supporting marriage equality, to books on climate change, to websites supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander recognition. The bill will force some charities to choose between public advocacy and accepting international philanthropy. It will tie up many in bureaucratic knots, forcing them to detail political expenditure and their senior employees' membership of political parties, and it will require statutory declarations from any donor who cumulatively gives more than $250 annually, an onerous burden that will certainly impact on charitable giving in this country.

We shouldn't be surprised by this government's attacks on charities and civil society. The campaign against independent, progressive voices began some time ago, as I articulated earlier. But in 2016 we witnessed the relentless government criticism of the independent Human Rights Commission and its then commissioner, Gillian Triggs, simply because the government did not like what the commission had to say. The government established the Registered Organisations Commission with the express purpose of attacking unions. The Australian Electoral Commission is investigating GetUp! for being an 'associated entity', which basically means a front group—for not one but two political parties. Previous conservative governments put in place gag clauses that tried to take away the DGR status of various organisations. This suite of bills seems to be the culmination of this worrying pattern of behaviour, where a government in trouble seeks to use the apparatus of the state to stifle dissent. That is what this is about. The Greens will not stand for this. We will oppose this attack on civil society. We won't be supporting these bills, and we urge the crossbenchers and the ALP to stand with us in opposing these bills. (Time expired)