Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Legislation Amendment Bill 2018, which the Greens will be supporting. The main effect of this bill will be to expand the scope of the information to be made publicly available with regard to those registered under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act registration scheme. The bill will also reduce the grace period for registration by those with registerable arrangements at the commencement of the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act—which is 10 December 2018—from six months to the earlier of three months from commencement or 14 days from the issue of election writs. The Attorney-General, in his second reading speech on this bill, stated that the six-month grace period currently granted under the NSLA act effectively excuses certain people who will be liable to register once the FITS Act commences from having to do so before the next federal election if it takes place in the first half of 2019, which you would think is just about a certainty as we stand here today.

The Australian Greens do have concerns about foreign influence, and, if you want to understand the impacts of foreign influences on some of our world's largest and most important democracies, senators need look no further than the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States. In both of those votes, there was significant foreign influence, and, in both of those cases, the foreign influence included, but was probably not limited to, the state of Russia. We hold grave concerns about foreign influence in Australia's democracy. There have been repeated warnings from security agencies such as ASIO of attempts by foreign governments to influence our democracy. Certainly, one foreign government that we hold significant concerns about—a government which has attempted, and is undoubtedly attempting, to influence our democracy—is the government of China, with which both the LNP and the ALP have very close ties. Those ties are to the detriment of the independence of our democracy. So we will be supporting this bill because, even though the measures contained in it are quite small steps, we believe they do step us down the road towards a more robust protection of our democracy from interference and influence by foreign governments.