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

I present the explanatory memoranda and I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

The fairness and transparency of our elections underpins every issue addressed in this place.

We can't trust our politicians to make decisions about gambling harm if they are secretly beholden to gambling providers.

We can't trust them to make decisions about climate if they are financed by fossil fuel companies.

And if we don't know where their money is coming from, we don't have all the information we need before we decide who to trust with our vote.

In commerce we need competition to drive innovation and prevent big companies from using their market power to dominate.

In politics we also need competition so if communities don't feel that their values or priorities are shared by their representatives, they can find a different representative.

We need diversity in politics so that it is actually representative of community.

This bill lays out 12 reforms to improve transparency, reduce financial influence, level the playing field and provide fair representation for the Territories.

These changes have the broad support of the crossbench, democracy think tanks, civil society organisations and academics, some of whom are here in the chamber today.

These reforms build on the work of many other crossbenchers, including the members for Mayo, Clark, Warringah and Indi and the Greens.

These reforms are also likely to be supported by the one-third of Australians who didn't cast their primary vote for a major party last year and anyone who thinks transparency and a level playing field are good for democracy.

The first five changes relate to the current lack of transparency. Over the last 20 years, only 21 per cent of major parties' private funding has been disclosed donations. We need to fix disclosure requirements and ban lies so voters can make an informed choice about their representatives.

The bill proposes to lower the disclosure threshold from more than $16,000 to $1,000 and require disclosure within seven days.

The bill also proposes changes to broaden the gift definition and improve the so-called Transparency Register. This would mean that $14,000 dinners and $35,000 business roundtable subscriptions could not be hidden. It would also mean we could see exactly how much revenue the Labor Party earns from pokies. Over the last 20 years, 21 per cent of all private funding to the major parties came from undisclosed sources.

The bill bans lies in political ads, using the approach proposed by the member for Warringah. The 2016 'Mediscare' incident and the 2019 death tax incident showed that both major parties are guilty of this and Australians deserve better.

The next three changes are aimed at reducing financial influence. Australians worry that politicians make decisions for vested interests, not for all of us. We need to reduce financial influence so we trust governments to make decisions in the best interests of the country.

The bill proposes a major-donor cap, which is a cap set at 2% of the total amount of public funding at the previous election. Had this cap been in place at the 2022 election, the amount of money given in major donations would have reduced from over $200 million to about $83 million. It would have affected just four donors, and is therefore unlikely to be subject to any successful constitutional challenge.

Donations from companies inflicting social harm should be banned. In 2022, gambling and alcohol companies contributed $2 million to major parties, including $19,000 from Sportsbet to Minister Rowland, who is in charge of regulating gambling, in the week of the election.

The bill also proposes banning donations from current or potential substantial government contractors. The big four accounting firms contributed $4.3 million in donations to major parties in the last 10 years. During this time, the value of their government contracts has increased by at least four times. Three-quarters of OECD countries don't allow these types of donations, and it's time Australia joined them.

The remaining three changes are about levelling the playing field. In 2022, voters decided they wanted more political choice, with one-third casting their primary vote outside the major parties.

It's an uphill battle for community candidates, who face at least 13 party advantages and five incumbency advantages. Equalising some of these advantages would enable healthy political competition. It would also mean that parliamentarians are more likely to be representative of the diversity of the community, enabling more candidates from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.

For example, the bill proposes to limit government advertising before elections. The Coalition spent $31 million on its positive energy campaign before the last election, trying to convince us we weren't the worst OECD country on climate change. This was paid for by taxpayers. This was consistent with at least a doubling in government advertising before every election. Governments should not be able to use taxpayer funds to promote their party's achievements.

The bill cleans up the postal voting process. Postal voting is an important part of our election process. But political candidates have been using this to harvest personal data and in many instances cause confusion.

It also proposes setting up an independent campaign entity for independent candidates, to equalise access to voters and reporting dates between independents and parties.

Finally, and significantly, the bill addresses the unfair lack of democratic representation of the ACT and the Northern Territory.

At present, the Territories are represented by just two senators each, a number that was set as part of a political deal in 1975. The deal had no real basis but was a political decision that effectively gave both major parties two additional Senators (one from each Territory).

Two Senators is not fair democratic representation for Territories. Increasing the number of Senators for the Territories allows greater opportunity for a more diverse representation, better reflecting the views of the people.

It's up to all of us to make it clear to government that we expect its response to incorporate these changes and not just entrench the two-party system.

We must be able to see where the money comes from before elections. We must reduce financial influence that could skew the decisions of government.

And we must have a level playing field so new representatives can emerge if that's what their communities want.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

(Quorum formed)