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

[by video link] Don't hold your breath on the ministerial standards, Senator Patrick. As we know, they're not independently enforced. They're completely at the whim of the Prime Minister. I digress.

On the issue that Minister Cormann yesterday attempted to allay concerns about, I think the issue remains: when it comes to the mark-up on a function above the cost of the actual meal, it is actually a grey area under our existing electoral laws, which is precisely why our amendment seeks to clarify that a gift includes such events. It's not just us who think it's a grey area. The Electoral Commission, when I previously asked them in estimates, said:

The classic example we have is when a person attends a dinner where members of a political party or government may be present. Quite often the person who attended might regard it as a donation while the recipient might regard it as 'other'. That is one of the areas where the act is not clear, and it has been a longstanding issue. Again, it is something we attempt to address in the various guidelines that we publish on our website. But it is an issue. It is one of the reasons it is impossible to accurately match a particular donation with a particular receipt because quite often there is not a meeting of minds between the person who is making the payment and the recipient of the payment.

This is exactly why lobster lunches and pay-for-access meetings keep occurring and they're not transparently disclosed.

We need to clarify the rules on when you've got to tell the public how much someone paid to go out to lunch, dinner or whatever it is with you and what exactly they get for their money. I reference a few contributions that the Minerals Council makes. They get two boardroom events and policy briefing sessions for their contribution of $25,000 to each of the larger political parties. So this is exactly why we need an amendment, such as the Greens one that's before us right now, to properly define 'gift' not only to include party membership fees of over $1,000—they're not included at the minute either; it's another convenient backdoor way of making extra donations—but to ensure that any of those subscriptions are disclosed. So I don't accept that Senator Cormann's view that this is already addressed by the electoral laws to be a correct representation. It is not clear. We have a chance to put it beyond doubt. I hope that addresses any of the questions that Senator Patrick might have about the dissatisfactory status of the current law.

I neglected to confirm in response to Senator Hanson that the Greens have not received foreign donations. I wanted to make sure the record was corrected there, because Senator Hanson got that wrong. I also note her comments about lowering the disclosure threshold. That was yesterday's amendment. As folk would know, the amendment that we're addressing at the minute is to cap donations to $1,000, to ban donations from those industries that have sought to exert undue influence and to clarify that definition of 'gift' so we can't have these shady pay-for-access occurrences continue. Just so everybody is clear, that's what we're voting on now. The disclosure threshold, which is Labor's policy that they voted against, happened yesterday.