Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I thank the members who have spoken in support of this bill. I appreciated your contributions. I have to say, listening to the Leader of Government Business bleat about the administrative burden that the Liberal Party ‑ which has hidden the source of $13 million worth of donations of the past five years ‑ will have, I certainly did not shed a tear for you, Leader of Government Business. What a rubbish argument.
I was reminded a short time ago by someone who is watching this that when this bill went through the other place last year, the Liberals tried to find some space to provide for $200,000 for themselves to cover the administrative burden of this bill. I understand from the leader of government business’s reply that if this bill passes this place, government will bring back a bill that provides funding for compliance with this bill.
Ms Forrest – Maybe they should fund the integrity bodies adequately to comply with their requirements.
Ms Webb – And the Tas NPM (National Preventative Mechanism).
Ms O’CONNOR – Is that not interesting? Yes, the massively starved National Preventative Mechanism that cannot perform their statutory function; and the Integrity Commission, which is on its knees begging for money. I am sure they would love $200,000 to help them do their important work in the public interest. As I understand it, when the government suggested the number of $200,000 in the House of Assembly last year, the crossbench erupted in laughter. It would be interesting to see what happens if the government follows through and tries to bring in a bill or amend this legislation again – the Electoral Disclosure and Funding Act 2023 – in order to provide some money for itself to comply with a very modest administrative burden, as described by the member for Mersey.
The Greens political party have a party manager. I think we have – and I am not going to give away our trade secrets –
Mr Edmunds – You said you were transparent.
Ms O’CONNOR – Okay, no, you make a fair point. We have a party manager who works three days a week and then we have two part‑time people who work in the party as well. We have three kind of permanent part‑time staff. That is what we run on. That is what we run on. I have given away the trade secret, but we have never had a problem complying with our own self‑imposed transparency laws where the first thing we do if someone wants to offer us money is run it through an ethical lens. We have by‑laws about how to deal with donations. You would never catch us taking money from the kind of vested interests who are donating to the Liberal and Labor parties. You just never would, right? We also manage, however, that modest administrative burden ‑ and maybe it is because we get less money ‑ of lodging our donations over $1500 in a very timely way. I am not going to sort of big lip and say we do it in real time, but it is extremely timely.
We are not dealing with $13 million or $5 million in undisclosed donations over the past five years, which is what we had from the Liberal and Labor parties respectively. To suggest that a well-oiled, well-resourced political machine like the Liberal Party or the Labor Party in Tasmania does not have the administrative support to comply with the existing act and the provisions that would come into effect on 1 July, or to comply with this because it is an administrative burden, is insulting to our intelligence. Use some of those vast sums of money that have been donated to your political party, perhaps to pay for some extra administration support.
I am going to keep my response brief. I am very thankful to members who will support our amendment bill. I totally agree with the member for Nelson and commend her on her unwavering commitment to democracy and integrity that this is one part of a body of work that parliament needs to undertake and it is something that the Greens will be laser‑focused on. Let us be really clear here, in a way, this Chamber is a very good place to have a fresh discussion about electoral donations. It is not to independents or to the Greens that big corporations make donations, so within this Chamber and in a better power‑sharing parliament downstairs, there is much less capacity for that self-interest to influence the vote. At the moment, let us face it, big corporations are pretty well focused on the Liberal Party, which is why it is no surprise to me that the Liberals remain adamantly opposed to this sort of reform. I wish you would see the light and join with us in supporting this legislation. That is not on you, Leader of Government Business, I know.
I thank members, commend the bill to the House. Finally, on the administrative burden, I should just say, it is a small price to pay for more transparency and a stronger democracy to require political parties to declare donations over $1000 that are made to them within a monthly period, it is a very small price to pay for our democracy.
Bill read the second time.
