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

The government oppose this amendment. The Greens amendment would arbitrarily ban eight different specific categories of businesses from participating in the democratic process—eight different specific categories of legal, lawful businesses. Amongst the businesses that the Greens seek to ban are pharmaceutical companies. At the very time when these companies are alleviating suffering and helping to address the strains of a global health pandemic, the Greens want to stigmatise them by labelling them as a 'dirty industry', quite a disgraceful description of an extremely important sector of our economy and an important sector in our community, supporting public health. It's unbelievable that the Greens would come in here and seek to stigmatise such an important sector of our economy in that fashion. To be very clear, this ban which the Greens are proposing would hit companies that conduct pharmaceutical research and testing of medical cures, the sorts of companies that are at the forefront of fighting diseases.

The amendment also raises obvious questions over the constitutionality of such proposals given that the High Court has clearly stated in recent cases that donation bans could fail where they are not reasonably necessary and they impermissibly burden the implied freedom of political communication. The amendment also proposes a donation cap on $3,000. Those capping provisions cover donations for various political actors, including a state branch of a political party. But the amendment overlooks that some parties also have territory organisations. So, even putting policy preferences to one side, this is not a thoroughly thought through and well-drafted amendment and the government will oppose it.