Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I've listened carefully to Senator Waters and to Senator Farrell outline their approaches to the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Transparency Measures—Lowering the Disclosure Threshold) Bill 2019. I have to say I think there is largely agreement in the Australian community about what the nature of the problem is. There is largely agreement—apart from on the government side—that the influence of unregulated undisclosed money in politics is a deep problem for our political system and a deep problem for the level of trust that there is between people and their government.

We saw, of course, in the last election Mr Clive Palmer—that disreputable businessman from Queensland—spending an enormous amount of money largely directed against the Labor Party. It was tens of millions of dollars across the country, spent in an entirely unaccountable and unprincipled way and directed to supporting—in particular in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia—the candidates that the Morrison government put forward in that election. We've seen scandals about donations being provided by companies and by organisations who later got grants from the Morrison government. People are, I think, entitled to have a deep level of scepticism about this government's commitment to a clean electoral system, to a balanced electoral system.

When you listen to Senator Waters, it is as if the impetus for electoral reform somehow comes from the Greens political party. It's as if they are the pure source of deep concern about the Australian electoral system and as if nobody else in the system, in the community or in academia has been talking about this issue for decade after decade. The Greens' interest in this area is welcome, though. I do think, having listened carefully to Senator Waters and looking at the Greens' policy position in this area, that they have some similar motivations but they get the answer quite wrong.

I do think that the bill that Senator Farrell has spoken to and dealt with offers the right answer to some very complex questions. It only deals with the questions that we've been outlining today. As Senator Waters says, there are other issues in the political system that we ought to be having regard to. So that's the Greens' position: right motivation, but I think they get the answers wrong. I think the Farrell bill is well worth this parliament supporting. But it does beg the question: what is the Morrison government's position about electoral reform? Well, it's two things. Firstly, it's, 'Nothing to see here; move on,' and, secondly, it's, 'How can we use this for our own partisan political advantage, to game the system?'

Of course the regulation of political donations is fundamental to our democracy. Donations are a form of speech, in fact. The High Court has upheld that donations are a form of political communication. Who can donate, how they can donate and the process through which that is disclosed are fundamental for citizens' participation in democracy. The lesson has to be clear from the United States about where you end up going as a society and a community if you allow completely unregulated, undisclosable, not transparent money into the political system.

In this country, the laws around political donations are subject to two legal tests: firstly, does the law burden the implied freedom of political communication and, secondly, is the law reasonably appropriate and adapted to serve a legitimate end in a manner compatible with a constitutionally prescribed system of responsible and representative government? The truth is that all regulation of political donations effectively burdens the freedom of political communication. The question is: when you regulate, is it appropriate and is it directed towards a legitimate end? We don't want an American-style system that preferences the constitutional rights of a wealthy few over the health of our whole political system, so what should be the legitimate ends of our system of electoral donations?

Our system should prioritise accountability, transparency, integrity and equity. The purpose of regulation in this area should be to provide for a vibrant public sphere. It should be to provide for more voices of ordinary Australians in politics, not fewer. It should engage and encourage speech and donations by individuals and organisations that bring more people into the political system and don't force the voices of ordinary Australians out. I don't believe that our election system should be entirely publicly funded. That is a recipe, supported by some, that leads to a sort of dull centrism where the ordinary voices of Australians are locked out. There's a balance to be struck here between proper public funding and ensuring that political parties are able to participate effectively in the political system without being beholden to donations and supporting the rights of political parties to be supported, whether it's by $10 donations from individuals or larger donations from organisations.

I have been engaged in this argument for many, many years, inside this parliament and outside of it. In 2012, the New South Wales government introduced laws that banned donations from any organisation or person who was not an enrolled voter in the state. It aggregated the electoral communications expenditure of parties and affiliated bodies such as unions under expenditure caps. So the Liberal Party in New South Wales did in its interests what the Greens would like to do in their interests if they were ever in charge: they abolished the capacity of their political opponents to participate in the system. That's what they did. They made it unlawful for unions and community organisations—environment organisations, neighbourhood organisations—to participate in the political system. I supported the Unions New South Wales case, which went to the High Court, which ultimately kicked out the O'Farrell legislation and turned down the New South Wales government on the basis that I described. It was not a legitimate end that the government sought; it was a political end that the government sought for its own political advantage.

There is quite some history to the labour movement's engagement in politics in this country. Most of our modern political history was shaped by the labour movement and the Labor Party participating in politics. Almost all of the good things that have happened in modern Australian history have happened as a result of the labour movement and the Labor Party's participation; and people, when considering their approach to donations, ought to have regard to that.

If the Nurses and Midwives Association want to use their resources in the lead-up to an election to campaign on nurse-to-patient ratios in a way that's openly declared, spending perhaps millions of dollars worth of members' money, who on earth are a group of politicians to tell them that that ought to be regulated out of existence? If the AMWU want to fight for locally built trains and apprenticeships, if the ASU want to fight for proper funding for better funded domestic violence services, or if the SDA or the United Workers Union want to fight for penalty rates in hospitality and retail, that's what we want in the political system. We want more people making the argument, bringing the argument home, but the Greens bill would see those voices silenced, in many respects.

The first meeting of the New South Wales Labor Party—I always say the New South Wales Labor Party; I don't want to upset my Queensland colleagues—was on 4 April 1891 at the Unity Hall Hotel in Balmain. That pub is still there. The Balmain Labor Electoral League accepted a donation from the dock workers union, which paid for the registration of all of the Labor league candidates for that election. Our movement has survived for 130 years because of those institutional connections.

In my view, the bill being offered this morning by the Greens is naive. It's partisan recklessness. Excluding individuals should be a product of careful and deliberate consultation, not a list of the people that you wish weren't participating in the public space. It's based on the proposition—I think by many people who approach this area of regulation—that, if all of these voices were removed, somehow the argument that had merit would rise to the top; somehow there would be this process where people would fairly consider the arguments. Well, the truth is that politics is shaped by institutional power, by a struggle for power and a struggle for winning propositions in the public sphere, and, whether your disagreement is with big mining or the finance industry, you can't legislate those people out of having some role. It is true that, where there is a nexus between pecuniary advantage and public policy, it is a legitimate end. For example, in the New South Wales system, I do think that there is a very strong argument for keeping property developers out of local and state government decision-making. That makes absolute sense. I think there is a community understanding that the tobacco industry ought not be engaged in that, given how closely related they are to health industry regulation. The case has to be made out, and it has to satisfy the test that the High Court set out for the parliament. I don't think the list that's provided does that.

I do want to spend a little bit of time, though, on the bill before us and the government's approach. Lowering disclosure thresholds is pretty fundamental. Our federal sphere has the weakest political donation laws of any jurisdiction. The disclosure threshold is entirely out of step with the states and the territories. In Queensland, it's $1,000; New South Wales, $1,000; Western Australia, $1,000; Victoria, $1,040, for some reason; the ACT, $1,000; and South Australia, $5,000. In the federal sphere, you can donate up to $14,300, and nobody will know. There is no aggregation. Multiple donations below the threshold can go unreported. As Senator Waters outlined to the chamber, that's why 40 per cent of the money received by the coalition parties to campaign in Australia is dark money—it is unreported, unaccountable, from individuals unknown.

In a system where we are watching developments overseas and watching developments in our own jurisdiction with foreign interference, with big money getting involved in politics, with scandal after scandal here, rort after rort here and smug arrogance in the way this government treats government money as Liberal Party money, it is entirely proper that people look at that 40 per cent of Scott Morrison's electoral war chest—40 per cent of it; nearly half—when nobody knows where it's come from. Nobody knows who made those donations. Nobody knows which piper is calling the Morrison tune on any particular day.

We do need proper electoral regulation in this country. We do need a National Integrity Commission to oversee the intersection between money and politics. We saw, just last week, Mr Dutton award a grant of nearly $900,000 to an organisation eight days after it donated to the Queensland Liberal National Party. He took a $36,000 chartered flight to Tasmania to announce a grant that he hadn't even awarded yet. This program wasn't Safer Communities; it was Safer Seats! That's what Minister Dutton was engaged in. That's why people are sceptical about the role of money in politics, and that's why this place and the other place need to get with the program and get a decent system of electoral regulation so we can rebuild confidence in the system.

Debate adjourned.