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

[by video link] I'll just take the opportunity to respond to some of that. I think Senator Farrell may be a bit disappointed that I didn't telephone him. I'm sorry; I went to the leader of your party in this chamber. I didn't get a reply, unfortunately.

I want to address some of the other issues that were raised. The government is trying to turn this amendment into something that it's not. I thought that was quite a heroic reinterpretation by Senator Cormann of these amendments that would stop big industries seeking to buy influence from political parties. Senator Cormann tried to recast it as restricting the operations of pharmaceutical companies. I'm very happy for them to continue with their work; in fact, they should not have been sold off in the first place. We'd like to see public pharmaceutical production, but I think that's, sadly, a bridge too far for this government, because it loves privatisation. It's not a restriction on their operations; we just don't think that they should be funding your political party. We don't think they should be funding anybody's political party. They should be spending their money on trying to help people. I thought it important to clarify that heroic attempt at a reframe by Senator Cormann.

And then, sadly, we had a bit of an attempt at a patronising lecture on hypocrisy, which didn't really land, from the Labor Party. This is the party that yesterday had a private member's bill for a $1,000 disclosure threshold and then voted against the Greens amendment to do just that in a manner which had exactly the same drafting as their own private member's bill. I think it's rich to be dishing out contentions of hypocrisy when you just voted against your own private member's bill.

Senator Farrell then sought to impugn several individuals who have supported the Greens in the past. I point out that none of those people—not companies but individuals—sought to exert policy influence, nor did they receive any policy influence. The distinction there is that our policies aren't for sale. Yes, we do want to cap big donations like that going forward. Yes, we do think that would be an improvement on democracy, and we're prepared to cop it, just like we think all of you should cop it. So, again, I really didn't feel like the attack from Senator Farrell landed.

Lastly, Senator Farrell championed the ending of foreign donations. He knows as well as I do that there are so many back doors in that legislation that foreign companies can still donate through an Australian subsidiary, a loophole the Greens sought to close with our amendments to that bill. I'll have to check the record, but I'm hazarding a guess that the Labor Party didn't support those amendments either. Again, I think it's a bit rich to get lectures doled out from people who don't have very clean hands in this regard.

With those offences addressed, I again commend these amendments to the chamber.