David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022, although I will be moving a number of amendments to try to improve it. When it comes to setting up the conditions for a referendum, we've heard arguments that tradition is important, and I agree. There is much to be said for looking to the past and seeing how things were done and how that served us. But that should not stop us from ensuring that we are learning from the past and that we are putting into place things to deal with the challenges that we know we are facing when it comes to referendums and elections: the changing landscape when it comes to social media; the expectations of Australians when it comes to truth in political advertising; political donation reform; and advances in technology to allow those things to be dealt with by the government.

While I'm hopeful that these amendments will receive support, I'm realistic that they're unlikely to get enough support to get over the line in the face of opposition by the major parties. This is really disappointing, to be frank. We hear a lot about transparency, and yet when Australians are clearly saying: 'We want more real-time political donation reporting. We want truth in political advertising. We want to be able to trust ads and things online when it comes to elections,' we don't hear much from the major parties. They point to reviews, when we actually have an opportunity now, with this referendum, to put some of those in place.

This referendum will be a defining moment in our history. As a younger Australian, I see it as an incredible opportunity to begin to right 100-plus years of wrongs—of not listening and of not consulting—and, for the first time as a nation, to say that we acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and that we believe they should, and will, have a voice on issues that affect them. That's what this referendum is about. The details of how that happens and what that looks like is up to politicians. It's up to elected representatives, as it should be, to vote on the model, and then, you'd hope, to improve it over time. That's what we're here to do. This is not a set-and-forget thing. This should be a matter of principle at the referendum and then a live, ongoing debate about what the best way is for First Nations people, Australia's First Peoples, to have a voice on issues that affect them.

To save the Senate time when it comes to committee of the whole, I'm going to run through my amendments here. The first one is about real-time donation disclosures. I know that a number of crossbenchers have raised this. It's something that has often been raised with us, and we'll be circulating amendments, if that hasn't been done already. I believe it's so important, from a transparency perspective, that when we go to the polls to vote on this potential change to our Constitution that we know who has funded the 'yes' and 'no' campaigns. Clearly, we need that level of transparency for federal elections, and I'm very hopeful that the government will move on that before the next election. But the referendum is an opportunity for this. Frankly, it's laughable that six months plus after an election we see who funded it. It isn't good enough anymore, and it's very easy to fix with the technology we have now. We could have close to real-time disclosures. I'm suggesting 14 days for these disclosures to be made public: seven days to submit a donation disclosure declaration and seven days to for it then to be made public. This technology is clearly available, so this is about political will by the government.

The next amendment is to do with exclusion zones. Referendums, like elections, can be very emotive. We've seen that play out even amongst politicians in this place and the other place. A number of jurisdictions do have exclusion zones which exclude certain activities around polling stations, like handing out how-to-vote cards and other behaviour designed to influence others. This amendment proposes setting up a similar zone nationally for the referendum. I believe it's an opportunity to ensure that polling stations are a safe space where people can go and cast their votes on this very important issue. It avoids the potential for some of the awful scenes that we saw on television over the weekend.

The next amendment is fact-checking of the pamphlet. Whilst I don't necessarily agree that in 2023 we should be mailing a pamphlet to every household, the government has decided that that's something it wants to do. At the very least, it should be fact-checked. We've heard a lot about truth in political advertising. Senator Brockman talked about us living in the age of disinformation and misinformation, and I believe this amendment begins to address some of that. We've seen political parties engage in misinformation and smear campaigns over a number of elections. The member for Warringah, Zali Steggall, has been pushing for much broader truth-in-political-advertising reform, which I fully support and which, certainly, from what I've been hearing from people in the ACT, the majority of people support. It makes a lot of sense. Again, we need political leadership and will from the government on this. Whilst there is the broader agenda, we have the opportunity to ensure that, at the very least, the pamphlet goes out with the contents of that pamphlet grounded in fact. It doesn't seem to be a big ask to me.

It's a pamphlet written by parliamentarians and I understand that it can have up to 2,000 words from each side of the debate. This has been raised with me by a lot of concerned people, including by people on the referendum working group, saying that if we're going to have a pamphlet then let's ensure that it's factual. That's because we saw some pretty average things going out in the names of various political parties and activist groups in the federal election. We in this place, the parliament of Australia, need to set the standard. If we're going to send something out, it should be factual. Australians should be able to believe what they see coming from our parliament. As it stands, that potentially won't be the case. The 'yes' and 'no' sides can write what they want and mail it out to every Australian household. I don't see how that's good enough. We talk about wanting to raise the standard of debate here and wanting to restore some trust in politics and politicians. Here's an opportunity—with the referendum. So I implore the government to consider this amendment. It is common sense. It is sensible. It is simply about ensuring that whatever goes out on that pamphlet is grounded in fact and people can have confidence in that.

The last amendment will be to add social media to the advertising blackout period. Again, things are changing. I don't see why we should say there's a blackout period for TV and print media and not include social media. We know that a huge amount of political advertising happens around elections, and I think that will certainly be the case with the referendum in 2023. I ask the government to consider this small update, which, again, is possible. Social media companies have pretty stringent rules when it comes to political advertising. The argument that it's too hard simply doesn't work in this case, because there are ways that they can ensure that all political ads are pulled a few days before the referendum.

Those are the amendments, which, again, will set up this referendum for what is a defining moment in our history. I would urge parliamentarians to stop playing cheap politics with this. This has the potential to change our nation for the better and allow us to begin to deal with the problems. In my short time here, we have debated for hours about wanting the federal government to step in and intervene in Alice Springs. What's happening there is an absolute tragedy, but we know that these things do not happen overnight. This has built up over a long time. If Australia's First Peoples had a way to have a voice to parliament, that would, in my mind, better equip this parliament to consult and then to make laws in a way that is more reflective of what Australians want and what Australians want Australia to become. This is a huge opportunity.

I really implore people in this place to embrace this. It's something that I think is on all of us. The way that we talk about it, the way that we set this up and, leading into the vote, the level of debate—those are choices that we will make, and we will be held accountable for our actions after that.