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

Thanks, Minister. A lot of the stuff I'm saying is from the departmental briefing, so I'd suggest that you check with the department that's actually drafted this legislation.

To your point about parties being able to spend less: it looks that way, but, when we actually look at the way that you calculate spending, all the people who aren't directly campaigning are just in admin, and they don't count. That is a massive loophole, and again it doesn't take into account the advantage of (1) being an incumbent, where you have a team who can do that work; and (2) the party machinery. Then you add on top $30,000 per MP and $15,000 per senator. That's a lot of cash to be organising in the background. That's not part of that $90 million cap. I understand the narrative that you're pushing, but it doesn't stack up with what your department is saying and it doesn't sound like there was any consideration given to new parties or Independents. It doesn't sound like there was any modelling done to work out what this will mean for new entrants.

I note that, at paragraph 528 of the explanatory memorandum, three Independent candidate campaigns have been cited as examples of campaigns which were successful with expenditure well below the proposed expenditure cap. I'm interested in what other analysis were conducted of these campaigns informing a view that an Independent candidate may be successful with total electorate expenditure of $100,000 to $340,000. Were incumbency factors considered? Was the nature of the electorate considered? How did you actually come up with this conclusion?