Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Paterson, we're putting a foreign donations provision into the referendum act to stop exactly what you say you're interested in stopping! What else are we supposed to do? We have a regime—and why do we have a regime to stop foreign donations? It's because two parliaments ago, as the shadow special minister of state, I pushed the government into doing something about it. We have a foreign donations register in the AEC legislation in this country because the Labor Party pushed for it. I can't remember, to be frank, any contribution from you in that role.

We have that legislation and we've put it into the referendum act now, so let the law work as it is intended to work. Stop all these conspiracy theories—all these crazy ideas that you have, obviously. We want a civil Australian referendum to determine whether there should be a Voice to parliament, and that's what this legislation is doing. If you vote in favour of this legislation then you'll get what you say you're after, which is protection from foreign influence in our electoral system.