Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries) Share this | Hansard source

Australia has a robust system of political disclosures overseen by the independent Australian Electoral Commission. Under changes introduced by this government to improve transparency, political campaigner disclosures have now been published for the first time, which reveal that nine unions spent almost $33 million on electoral expenditure in 2018-19, with just the ACTU spending over $21.2 million. When including third-party electoral expenditure, unions spent almost $35 million in 2018-19. A complete ban on corporate donations is misguided and will create an uneven playing field between big unions and other organisations in the Australian community, as well as posing potential constitutional problems. A $1,000 unindexed threshold is very low, and such a measure would risk increasing red tape and discouraging individuals from participating in the political process for fear of intimidation or retribution from political opponents.