Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

I'm not talking to the point of order; I'm just talking to the issue and to all of the amendments in front of us as I've done in previous debates and as is widely practised.

The Greens amendment will mean more red tape for individual Australians who would like to participate in the democratic processes, including by making financial contributions to their party of choice or the member or candidate that they would like to support. It would deter political participation and, even worse, this badly drafted amendment would reclassify numerous very small organisations as third-party campaigners if they spent more than $1,000 in a year on electoral expenses. This change would drag numerous not-for-profit and charitable organisations under the reporting rules for third party. This could sweep up tiny groups like neighbourhood associations, RSL branches, footy clubs and other small players who comment favourably or critically on federal politics. This would be the effect of the amendment because, under the Electoral Act, if someone spends more than the disclosure threshold they get categorised as a third party and face more burdensome reporting and disclosure obligations—namely, they have to make annual returns and appear on the Transparency Register.

The current threshold of $14,300 is set at the appropriate level to balance facilitating political participation while also facilitating and ensuring appropriate levels of openness and transparency. But $1,000 clearly is not.

This extreme change proposed by the Greens in the reporting arrangements has not been discussed with the charitable or not-for-profit sector as far as we are aware. The bad drafting of these amendments may be unintentional, but the Greens made exactly the same drafting error when they moved similar amendments back in 2013. I pointed out those errors then, but here we are again with the same, obviously, very badly drafted amendments in the same form.