Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I rise to take note of a report that was table out of session, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters' report into the private member's bill the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Lowering the Donation Disclosure Threshold) Bill 2019, which relates to lowering the donation disclosure threshold. We welcome this bill, which was introduced by a member of the crossbench, the Centre Alliance member, in the House.

Big money, as people will know, continues to corrupt our democracy and prioritise private interests over the public interest, so we agree with the majority of submitters to this inquiry, who support lowering that disclosure threshold to $1,000. To genuinely remove the influence of big money on politics, the Greens have consistently advocated for strict donation caps, for bans on donations from damaging industries and, of course, for election spending caps. We've also advocated for rigorous real-time disclosure to improve the accountability and transparency of campaign funding. We welcome any moves to improve the transparency and accountability of the money that, sadly, props up decision-makers in this place, and we of course support the lowering of that threshold down to $1,000 so that members of the public know who is paying whom. Our concern is that simply knowing does not remove the influence that those donations may seek to have. It certainly doesn't remove the perception that the influence is in fact exerted by those donations.

Our view is that, whilst this is an improvement to transparency measures, it doesn't actually address the bigger issue of donations in our democratic system. As people will know, we have long advocated for bans on donations from property developers, banks and mining companies and from the tobacco, liquor, gambling, defence and pharmaceutical industries to political parties and candidates and associated entities. We're also keen to see a cap on donations from anyone, whether they're a company, whether they're a union or whether they're an individual, of no more than $3,000 per three-year term. That's a cap on actual donations, not just disclosure. It's a cap on the actual amount that anyone can donate to a political party or candidate. That's how you get rid of the influence of big money and vested interests into our democracy.

I'll soon be introducing a bill to achieve just that—it's on the Notice Paperto ban donations from those industries that seek to damage the public good and exert undue influence on decision-makers, and to cap the amount that everyone else can donate in support of democracy. I look forward to the debate when we come to that particular bill.

Question agreed to.