Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

First let me express my concern about the government’s watering down of the election disclosure requirements, particularly given the weekend revelations that the member for Indi is linked to a secret fund called the Friends of Indi which has received, amongst other donations, some $15,000 from the tobacco giant British American Tobacco. There are three strikes on the member for Indi over this matter.

Firstly, these donations were not declared to the Australian Electoral Commission. None of the cash, including the $15,000 from British American Tobacco, was disclosed on Liberal Party returns to the Australian Electoral Commission, nor did the Friends of Indi disclose its funds separately as an associated entity of the Liberal Party.

Secondly, there is a major question mark about where this money ended up and what the person who got it did with it. A spokesman for Friends of Indi said:

I don’t think that the Victorian division or the head office of the party would be aware of our existence or what we do mainly because we’ve never seen fit to get in contact with them about it.

... it’s not set up primarily to provide money to the party. We prefer to engage in more direct action.

It sounds as if the money might have gone to the local Liberal Party, except that the Liberal Party’s finance chairman for the Indi area, Andrew Randall, has never heard of it. He says:

I have never heard of a supporters group called Friends of Indi. I have never seen a cheque come into the Indi funds from any organisation calling itself Friends of Indi.

He says, not unreasonably, that he would be ‘most appreciative’ to receive its fundraising results including the British American Tobacco cheque.

So maybe British American Tobacco did not really donate the money to the Liberal Party at all. Maybe it just wanted to donate it to Friends of Indi. Well, not according to British American Tobacco spokesman, Bede Fennell. He has stated he had absolutely no doubt the company’s $15,000 cheque to the Friends of Indi was intended for the Liberal Party. He said:

For us that’s the main thing. That’s why we disclose it. We wouldn’t be giving money to bodies that aren’t connected to the Liberal Party.

The member for Indi has stated she was familiar with the group, and believed it was registered with the AEC as an associated entity. She is wrong about that. That is okay; we all make mistakes from time to time. She goes on to describe the group:

Just like a lot of political parties, it’s a fund-raising support organisation ... specifically for the Indi Liberal Party.

Yet the Indi finance chairman says he has never heard of it. The member for Indi owes the House an explanation. She owes the Australian Electoral Commission an explanation. Indeed, she owes the Liberal Party an explanation as to what happened to the money which went to the Friends of Indi, including the $15,000 it got from British American Tobacco.

There is a third strike: British American Tobacco says it made the donation ‘just to be part of the political process.’ It turns out they did a little better than that. They paid $15,000 to Friends of Indi in April last year. In October last year the member for Indi advocated in support of British American Tobacco’s offer of a buyout of the industry, encouraging tobacco growers to vote in favour of it. So British American Tobacco was indeed part of the political process. They donated $15,000 to a front group for the member for Indi—

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