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

Thank you, Senator Waters, for your very important question. You're correct. The Prime Minister did make undertakings to improve transparency and accountability in our electoral system. As you would be aware, a process was gone through in the relevant committee to examine a variety of proposals with respect to electoral reforms, and they did include aspects to deal with accountability and transparency and also regulating the amount of money that can be spent on the Australian electoral system.

It's true that we have not yet presented that legislation to the parliament, but one of the things I've tried to do, over the period that we've been in government, is to consult with all of the parties. We've certainly been doing that with you, Senator. We've had direct, personal meetings on these issues, and your leader and his relevant staff have also been involved in all of those negotiations. I'm very happy to talk to anybody in this place who wants to discuss electoral reform.

It has taken longer than I would've liked, but sometimes in this place, to get the best results, you do have to take longer than you otherwise would like. In politics—

Yes, that's true. You can laugh, Senator Cash, but politics is the art of the possible. I continue to have hope that, through the lengthy discussions that I'm involved in, we'll get a result on— (Time expired)