Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries) Share this | Hansard source

The government opposes these amendments. The amendments are not required and reflect a misunderstanding of how the law currently works. The existing law already requires disclosure of fundraising through dinner events to raise funds for federal electioneering. If a ticket to a federal fundraising event is higher than the cost of the event to any degree then that profit element is already defined as a gift under the Electoral Act and must be declared.

These amendments introduce a new concept of a shared event cost that's not limited to events for electoral purposes. They would therefore apply to events that are completely unrelated to elections. This goes beyond the scope of the Electoral Act and would burden organisations from holding events—for example, for non-electoral charitable purposes. Acting in conjunction with other amendments moved by Senators Lambie and Patrick of a $1,000 disclosure threshold, the amendments could mean that attending a $30 morning tea with 50 guests could make the event go over the threshold and require every attendee's home address to be published online in perpetuity. This is, frankly, impractical. It is unnecessary and overreaches—outside the legitimate purposes of the federal electoral donation laws.