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

I rise to speak on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Transparency Measures—Lowering the Disclosure Threshold) Bill 2019. This is a bill that would lower the disclosure threshold for donations to political parties to $1,000. That is a noble outcome, but I'm extremely disappointed that, whilst we are debating this bill today, the Labor Party are not bringing this bill on for a vote. They could have done so. The Senate could have voted this through. The Greens certainly would have supported it, and we do support it. It is a bare minimum reform but it is a start. I am extremely disheartened that there seems to be an attempt to be seen to be doing something without actually doing the thing. I call on Labor to rethink their plans to not move this bill for a vote, because, surely, when private senators' time is so scarce, we should use those opportunities to pass good laws.

I will talk about how this bill could be further improved, but the major point here is: it is great that we are debating reform, but why not bring it on for a vote? We know the government don't even want to be seen to be doing anything, let alone actually do something, but to have this chance to push them to a vote and to not do so is baffling to me and incredibly disheartening to the Australian population who want reform in this space. They are sick of their democracy being perceived as for sale, so this is a bare minimum reform. Lowering the disclosure threshold is the least we could do to clean up the influence of big money on politics. It wouldn't remove the influence of that money but it would at least have some transparency over the process. But, after today, we still won't have that because Labor are not bringing this bill on for a vote. So one wonders, frankly, about the point of even debating this if you are not going to move it to a vote.

I'm sure everybody knows that big money continues to corrupt our democracy and prioritises private interests over the public interest and over the interests of the broader constituency and people. Figures disclosed last Monday by the Electoral Commission show that, in 2019, nearly $170 million was donated to political parties, and the majority of that money came from just five big donors. The alarming thing is the trend here. Between the 2016 and the 2019 elections, the amount of money that was donated tripled. So the problem of private money buying political parties and funding their re-election campaigns is getting worse. It has become three times worse between the last two elections, and these are just the donations that we do know about—I will talk a bit about dark money in a moment. This is a particularly concerning trajectory, particularly since we are staring down the barrel of the next election.

The usual suspects like the gambling industry, fossil fuels, pharmaceuticals and the banking sector have continued to give very generously, and they have been rewarded with grants, with contracts, with advantageous policy outcomes—or advantageous policy inaction, in the case of the climate crisis. To give just a few examples, the guy whose box factory opening kept the Prime Minister from an international climate summit, Mr Anthony Pratt, donated $1.55 million to the coalition through Pratt Holdings. And Pratt's company, Visy, ended up with a $10 million bushfire recovery grant and now a recycling export ban that strengthens their market dominance. The biggest five fossil fuel giants—Woodside, Santos, Rio Tinto, BHP and Peabody—collectively gave around $10 million to the major parties and to lobby groups in 2019-20. Is it any wonder that we see government paralysis on the climate crisis and this continued fiction of a gas led recovery?

Chevron paid no tax on their Australian earnings, but they somehow managed to find $92,000 to donate to the major parties. Crown, who you'll hear a lot more about this week, gave almost $146,000 to the major parties in 2019-20 and they have given $2 million since the year 2000. Given the evidence in the Bergin report just last week about criminal involvement and money-laundering allegations, it really is incumbent upon both big parties to give that money back or, better still, to give it to a gambling support service and charity, and we'll be talking about that later today.

I have more examples of big money buying big outcomes. The big four accounting firms donated $400,000 to the big parties. Over that same period they got themselves almost $600 million in government contracts. That's a pretty good return on investment. After a brief hiatus during the banking royal commission, the big banks have resumed donating. The banks, the financial lobby groups and the major insurance and credit firms delivered over $900,000 to the government in 2019-20. That wouldn't possibly have anything to do with the efforts to relax responsible-lending laws now, would it?

The Greens have consistently advocated for lowering not just the disclosure threshold but the amount that people, organisations, companies and unions—anybody—are permitted to donate to a political party. We'd like to see bans on particular industries that have a demonstrated history of seeking influence on policymaking. We don't think they should be allowed to donate at all. But at the very least we think that there should be a cap of $1,000 per year on how much you—no matter who you are—can donate to the big political parties. This would level the playing field. This small modest amount, hopefully, isn't enough to buy influence. It would still be constitutional and allow people to express their desires to support a particular party. Big money should not be running our political system. At the moment it's running rife. It got worse over the last election period. This bill attempts to do the barest minimum of reforms, and we're not even going to get to vote on it today.

Real-time disclosure is another issue. We've that in Queensland now. This bill doesn't address speeding up the disclosure time frame. There's a lag of up to 19 months before the public learns who donated what to whom. That delay doesn't help transparency. In fact, it hides possible policy outcomes that may have been obtained from that donating. So we need a rigorous real-time disclosure regime and we need to properly address this issue of dark money not just by lowering the disclosure threshold but by treating as political donations things like membership fees, fundraising dinner fees and the cosy lunches and dinners where you pay a squillion dollars to sit next to the minister and speak in her or his ear. We need to treat all of that as political donations to get some transparency and accountability in the system.

As I said, we support lowering the disclosure threshold to $1,000. Whilst this improves transparency, it doesn't remove the influence of that money. Greater transparency would give information but it would still take up to 19 months to disclose. It will tell us who's buying our democracy but not in a timely manner and it won't stop it being for sale.

We saw a report this morning that the extent of dark money is off the charts. Some 40 per cent of the money received by the coalition falls into the category where they don't need to disclose who's giving them that money. It's called dark money because it either falls under the disclosure threshold or is in a category where you don't otherwise have to disclose. It includes things like fundraising dinners, membership subscriptions and donations from support bodies that are affiliated with the party. Dark money is a huge problem. Some 40 per cent of the coalition's funds are dark money and I think 27.7 per cent of Labor's funds are dark money. So, while lowering the disclosure threshold will address some of that, it still leaves those other categories unregulated. We have the chance to fix that, and we should be doing exactly that.

This bill doesn't capture membership fees. It doesn't capture subscriptions or attendance at fundraising events. It doesn't lift the curtain on those holding companies and foundations that warehouse donations. So, without that reform, significant sources of campaign income will remain hidden. This bill also doesn't stop government grants and contracts from going to donors. It doesn't prevent companies from applying for government approvals while donating and donating while their applications are being assessed. In recent years we've seen a litany of examples of companies, including Santos and Adani, making donations at around about the time their approvals were given. That is something that the Greens would like to reform as well. This bill doesn't impose any restrictions on the source of political donations. We've seen in the media this week the revelations about Crown. Clearly, accepting donations from organisations like Crown, which is now embroiled in criminal allegations and money-laundering allegations—it's just past tenable that any party would continue to receive or even retain donations from folk like Crown. The defence, pharmaceutical, mining, property development, banking and alcohol industries should also be explicitly prohibited from seeking to buy favourable outcomes through donations.

Lastly, this bill doesn't put a cap on the total amount of donations that can be made. It doesn't bring forward that 19-month delay in disclosure. A few weeks ago—as, earlier today, Senator Farrell said when he spoke to this bill—the Labor Party were dismayed that Clive Palmer and his political party had made donations to the Nationals and generally spent an awful lot of money trying to buy electoral outcomes, either for themselves or for the coalition. But despite this outrage, which I note is lacking when it comes to fossil fuel donations and the influence that that industry seeks, just last week they sadly refused to vote for our motion calling for real-time disclosure and donation caps. They said the parliament needed to debate real reforms. Here we are debating some reforms, but you're not even bringing it to a vote. I think you're being hoist with your own petard. I therefore move a second reading amendment standing in my name on sheet 1194:

At the end of the motion, add: ", but the Senate notes that this Bill should be complemented by reforms to:

(a) cap the total value of political donations that can be received by a political party, candidate, political campaigner or associated entity; and

(b) require more timely disclosure of political donations above the disclosure thresh

This amendment is drafted in such a way that we hope people will be able to support it. I understand it has now been circulated in the chamber. This amendment calls for a cap on the amount of political donations that can be made. We would like it set at $1,000, but we're open to discussion. It also calls for a more timely disclosure of political donations so that we're not waiting for 19 months. Queensland manages real-time disclosure, and there is a variety of time frames that apply in different states. It can be done; it can be sped up. Let's have that conversation. As I'm an eternal optimist, I look forward to getting some support when the time comes for the second reading amendment.

I might flag one final point: were this bill to have gone to a vote, had the Labor Party sought to do so, we would have moved some committee stage amendments to address this point. We don't have that opportunity today, but we may have that opportunity in the future. Lowering the disclosure threshold will impose greater reporting requirements on third parties, and the term 'third party' is defined. The definition in section 287 means that an organisation becomes a third party when its spending on electoral matters is more than the disclosure threshold. If you were to be deemed a third party, you would therefore be subject to higher reporting requirements and, beyond just the disclosure of those same donations, there would be additional obligations that would flow. We are concerned, as we always have been, that that might deter smaller organisations from advocating on important political issues during election campaigns—I'm thinking in particular of environmental organisation, given that's my background. This is a very readily fixed issue, simply by decoupling the definition of 'third party' from the disclosure threshold and instead tying it to an amount of electoral expenditure. I understand this issue is before JSCEM, which I sit on, and will probably be addressed in the review of the electoral funding and disclosure reform, or EFDR, bill. We look forward to, hopefully, having a consensus workable solution on that matter. But I wanted to place on record that we're aware of the issue and keen to see it addressed.

We had an opportunity here today to debate donations reform. There is such a long list of reforms that are needed. Yes, we need to lower the disclosure threshold, but we've got to cap the amount that people can donate. We've got to make sure that that disclosure happens as quickly as possible. We've got to capture all that dark money by making sure that memberships, fundraisers and those other uncategorised donations actually do have to be disclosed. People have a right to know who is seeking to buy influence, and, frankly, people have a right to a system that is free from being able to be bought. That's why we'd like to see a cap on the amount of donations that can be made to political parties, and a level playing field. No matter who you are, that cap should apply. Individuals, unions, companies, vested interests, lobby groups—you name it. Let's get the influence of big money out of our politics and out of our democracy. This isn't America. Our democracy shouldn't be for sale to the highest bidder. We should be guided by evidence and by the public interest in making decisions, not by who just took you out to lunch and promised to make a motza of a contribution to get you re-elected.

The Australian people deserve that reform. Momentum is building for that reform. The Greens have been pushing for this for 10 years now—that seems to be about the time frame it has taken for other things to get done. It took us 10 years before a federal ICAC was at least agreed to in principle by big political parties. Of course we're yet to see one, but we continue to wait. So we will still be here pushing for reform of our political system, because people want their democracy back.