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

[by video link] I'll address a number of the issues that have been raised in the last little while. The amendments were circulated last night, and I would hope folks have taken the opportunity to read the amendments that the chamber is now debating, so I was a bit confused by Senator Farrell's remark there. I take issue with what Senator Cormann said; the intention of these amendments is to lower the disclosure threshold so that members of the public can see who is donating to political parties. There is no other intention but that. I might point out that the drafting in these amendments mirror the drafting, I'm told, of Labor's own private member's bill which seeks to do the same thing. So I wasn't quite clear from Senator Farrell's contribution as to whether or not his party will be voting for the amendments that they have their own legislation for in exactly the same drafting format or not, but we'll find out in just a minute. I wanted to disabuse anyone who might be listening because they haven't got anything better to do at this time of night that the intention of these amendments is simply to improve transparency and to ensure that people know who's donating to political parties, as I believe is their right to know.