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

Public trust in our democracy is at an all-time low, and the community feels less and less confident that people elected to represent them are actually representing them, rather than representing vested interests and big political donors. They feel that our democracy is for sale, and I think they are right. The big four consultancy firms donated more than $4.3 million to both sides of politics over the last 10 years, and over that same period, in return, they secured about $8 billion in government contracts. That's for work that my party thinks should have been done by an independent, well-resourced Public Service, but you can't deny that's a pretty good return on investment for those firms.

Polling released this week found there's an overwhelming majority of people—74 per cent—who think you shouldn't be able to donate to a political party if you are someone that gets funding from government contracts. That is, if you're a government contractor, you shouldn't be able to pay the people who are then paying you for your work. They think it sounds like corruption or, at the very least, bribery. I might add that, of those 74 per cent of people, 70 per cent were Labor voters and 80 per cent were coalition voters. So this is something that people who vote for all the parties in this building actually think needs to be addressed.

So I put that to the Minister representing the Prime Minister today in question time, and it was very interesting. Often, when the Greens ask the government of the day—no matter who's in charge—about donations and the influence that they buy, we get some pretty angry responses. But we didn't get an angry response today. We had a response that actually showed that perhaps the government is thinking about these sorts of reforms. Maybe I am an optimist—well, I certainly am an optimist; perhaps I'm being too optimistic in this regard, but I really welcome the potential for the government to genuinely consider reforming the rule that says you can make a donation and then on the very next day you can get a government contract. There's a real perception of corruption there. The minister in fact acknowledged that that perception exists. You could argue there's a reality as well as a perception, but I'm grateful the minister does at least recognise it's a really bad look. I'm hopeful that we might see some changes to our laws.

I next asked about companies that make political donations and then receive grants of public money—not contracts as such but just handouts, just grants. I cited the fact that the gas fracker Tamboran Resources, who are the ones who want to open up the Beetaloo basin to frack it beyond recognition and to release an absolute carbon bomb into the atmosphere, donated $200,000 to both of the big parties in the financial year 2021-22. I mentioned that in that very same financial year they sought and received 7½ million dollars in taxpayer money—a grant of taxpayer money—to frack the Beetaloo basin. We, of course, sought to disallow that grant, and the two big parties disagreed. They were very happy for that massive gas fracker to get public money to frack the Beetaloo basin. For me, that really highlights the fact that the government needs to change the rules to make sure that if you are seeking a government grant you are not allowed to donate to any political party, either in the lead-up or after you've received that grant.

On government contractors and government grants, it's clear we need to clean up the system, but it's also environmental approvals. I mentioned this in my question to the minister, and I noted that Adani—who have come under scandal after scandal and who have finally got approval for their megamine in my home state of Queensland—and their subsidiaries donated almost a quarter of a million dollars to the coalition in the same financial year they got their final environmental approval. In fact, they did it in instalments. They even made $100,000 of that $248,000 donation in the month after they got their federal environmental approval, which looks really fishy.

I'll be introducing a private member's bill to ban political donations from people who are seeking or receiving government contracts, government grants or environmental approvals from government. It is time we cleaned up the stench of corruption over our democracy and made it work for people again, not for political donors.

Question agreed to.