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

The government oppose these amendments. The government amendments comprehensively and fairly deal with the interactions between Commonwealth, state and territory laws. These amendments would remove those changes from the bill, allowing state and territory laws to apply to federal donations at the same time as Commonwealth laws applied, hence defeating the entire purpose of the legislation in front of the Senate. If the government's amendments had not been made there would be ambiguity for regulated entities. Duplication of laws in relation to the same financial transactions would be unnecessary where a donation was spent on federal electoral purposes only, so a double-up of legal obligations would cause confusion and uncertainty. Uncertainty would continue to mean a dispute over the correct legal treatment would be taken to the courts. This has already happened once. It would mean different people complying with different laws during the same federal election, based on which corner of the country they resided in. It would mean complexity when the AEC was trying to give guidance to the public and, indeed, would make our electoral arrangements at a federal level nationally inconsistent.