Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the chamber that the amendments before the chamber are to have disclosure around when people pay above a reasonable price for having a meal with a politician, be they a prime minister, a minister or an influential shadow minister. I have no issue with people going to dinner with parliamentarians. They shouldn't have to pay to do so. I think it's reasonable to recover the fee that is involved in serving a meal, but once the cost of the event gets above 15 per cent above the cost of the meal there needs to be some disclosure so that we don't have people dishing out large amounts of money just to be in the presence of someone. I think that's very wrong and un-Australian.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor won't be supporting these amendments by Senator Lambie and Senator Patrick. Our policy is for increased transparency through a lower disclosure threshold and real-time disclosure of donations. We welcome support by senators for Labor's bills currently on the Notice Paper for real-time disclosure and a disclosure threshold of $1,000. All electoral reform requires consideration. The issues raised by these amendments require further discussion and review. These amendments had not been discussed before with the opposition, and we haven't had time to discuss them with Senator Patrick or, indeed, have consultations across the opposition. We won't be supporting them.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government opposes these amendments. The amendments are not required and reflect a misunderstanding of how the law currently works. The existing law already requires disclosure of fundraising through dinner events to raise funds for federal electioneering. If a ticket to a federal fundraising event is higher than the cost of the event to any degree then that profit element is already defined as a gift under the Electoral Act and must be declared.

These amendments introduce a new concept of a shared event cost that's not limited to events for electoral purposes. They would therefore apply to events that are completely unrelated to elections. This goes beyond the scope of the Electoral Act and would burden organisations from holding events—for example, for non-electoral charitable purposes. Acting in conjunction with other amendments moved by Senators Lambie and Patrick of a $1,000 disclosure threshold, the amendments could mean that attending a $30 morning tea with 50 guests could make the event go over the threshold and require every attendee's home address to be published online in perpetuity. This is, frankly, impractical. It is unnecessary and overreaches—outside the legitimate purposes of the federal electoral donation laws.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendments be agreed to.