Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Whilst I will be supporting the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Annual Disclosure Equality) Bill 2021, for many of the reasons pointed out by other contributors, including Senator Scarr, there are other loopholes that also need to be closed, or other reforms that need to be looked at, and my amendments seek to do that. In relation to the mention I got from Senator Scarr, I don't think he was suggesting in any way that people ought to look at me; it is just that he was talking about Independents, and I was the only Independent in the chamber. He is acknowledging that now.

Senator Scarr talked about doubts being expressed about who is and who isn't donating to different parties and whether they are all corporate donors for one party and all environmental donors for another party. I think the point is: if we have disclosure that's at a low level, we don't want to burden mums and dads who want to contribute to a party, who look at a party and say: 'You know what? I like what they do. I want to help that party get re-elected.' That is as opposed to, perhaps, a very large donor who says, 'I want to own that party.' There is a distinction, a line, where an accusation can be drawn. But right now our disclosure threshold sits at $14,300, and that is way too high. That does give rise to an accusation that access is being bought and influence is occurring. That needs to be addressed. It's not a matter of these donations coming in. Let other people see where those donations are coming from so that they can make better claims when they're advocating their particular concerns. If we are seeing very large donations coming in from mining companies to the Liberal Party or to the National Party, let's see that. Let's not have innuendo and claims being made.

That's why I have an amendment that seeks to lower the threshold to $1,000, so we don't capture the mums and dads—there is a lot of burden involved in that. No-one would suggest that someone who is donating a few hundred dollars would ever be trying to buy access or influence. But certainly above that level the question starts to arise. So why not reduce the disclosure threshold to $1,000? It's my view that it should also be in real time. We're in a world now where real-time disclosure is not difficult to do, and that would allow the electorate to be completely informed as to who is receiving what money—how much, who it's from—when they're receiving it.

In reality, as I said, I'd like it to be real time. My amendment doesn't go there, and the reason it doesn't is that I know there's no support for it in either of the major parties. What I am happy to report is that the Labor Party does support a disclosure threshold down to $1,000. I'll just read from their website. They say:

Donations of over $14,300 are subject to disclosure under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.

This is the reason we require your personal details when making a donation. However, the Australian Labor Party has a policy of disclosing all donations over $1,000.

I'll be very surprised—or maybe I won't be surprised because I gave the opportunity last night for the Labor Party to vote for their own policy, but they decided not to.

Senator Scarr, to be fair, on your side of the chamber, you need to be looking at your own policies and you should be adopting these policies because they're about transparency, they're about confidence in our democratic system. I am up here having a go at the Labor Party because they're not supporting their own policy, but I'll happily have a go at the Liberal Party and say: it should be your policy; it ought to be your policy. I hope you take that to the party room, because I know you are a senator of great integrity. Whilst you might not be able to express your views outside the party lines, I'm hopeful that you share my views. I hope that when my amendment is moved the Labor Party will in fact support their own policy. So, let's cross our fingers and see what happens there.

I will be moving another amendment during the committee stage. We know that people come to dinners with prime ministers, ministers or influential politicians and will pay a ticket price of $10,000 to have a private audience. Whilst that practice may take place, I think you have to be open about it. I know there are a lot of companies that have policies that say they can't make political donations. So, they rock up to these events and they pay a ticket price—not a donation from their perspective; it's a ticket price. No-one is ever going to front up to a meal and get a $10,000 plate—that's not going to happen; that's not what's happening. People turn up and they get a nice meal—there's no question the meal and the wine would be nice.

Senator Scarr, the nice thing is: you can come round and visit me at any time and you don't have to pay a cent. That's the way I like it for everyone and that's the way it should be. You shouldn't have to buy any access at all. Senator Scarr, you are welcome to pop round to my office and even for us to go and have dinner at some stage—I'm sure I would enjoy that.

At the moment we have people turning up to dinners, and the price is reflective of who's sitting at the head of the table: if it's the PM, it's a big price; if it's a cabinet minister, it's slightly less; if it's an assistant minister, less again; and, if it's a hopeful, it's less again. I'm not sure where Senator Scarr is placing his pricepoint, but that's wrong, guys. If that's going to happen, disclose it. That's what needs to happen.

We need to have rules in place that require disclosure. I'm not asking people to go outside the rules. The rules are established, and everyone therefore plays within the rules; however, the rules are wrong and we've got to change those rules. So I will be giving people an opportunity to vote for my second amendment, which I didn't talk about yesterday because there was a gag debate after a dirty deal was done by the Labor Party. Actually, it was a dirty and really silly deal: one of the things they got out of the deal yesterday was to get voter ID knocked out of the legislation list at the expense of charities. That's what happened yesterday, if anyone didn't notice. The Labor Party did a deal with the coalition, at great harm to charities, so that voter ID was taken off the legislative table. Actually, if they had simply done the numbers, I had indicated I wasn't supporting it, Senator Lambie had indicated she wasn't supporting it and Senator Griff wasn't interested in supporting it on this side of an election, that's for sure. The government didn't have the numbers, and so the Labor Party sold out charities to get something that was already the case, and that was that the voter ID legislation wasn't going to make it through the parliament.

Unfortunately, we couldn't talk about that last night because it was all gagged. Therefore, I also couldn't talk about my amendment. Just to describe what my amendment does: basically, it says that if you have a dinner—I'm not trying to stop anyone having a dinner—and the proceeds of the evening are a reasonable margin above what the cost of the delivery of the service is then you have to declare the ticket price as a political donation. That's the way it should be.

Let's bring some transparency to this whole regime. A whole bunch of people just lost confidence in this building, both here and the other place, because they feel as though we can be bought. Part of the reason they feel that way is because of all the secret ways in which political parties raise their money, and we have to change that.