Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I rise to speak on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2010 I will take a moment to reflect on the question which the member for Blair raised when he talked about trivia nights. He said we have all been to lots of trivia nights. Well, here is a Trivial Pursuit question for you: how many members of the executive of the Labor Party are also senior officials or members of the executive of a union? The answer would be an enormous number. It probably would not be a very good Trivial Pursuit question because it would take too long to answer the question.

The member for Blair said that there was no mention of unions in this bill. That is the precise problem, because what we have here tonight in the bill that we are considering in this parliament is once again an episode in which the Labor Party is putting forward a set of amendments, a set of changes to the laws governing the electoral matters in this country, which are purportedly motivated by a high-minded desire to improve the arrangements under which political funding and other matters are dealt with in this country. And it is uncontroversial, as speaker after speaker from the coalition has said on this bill and on similar bills in the past, that there is always scope for the arrangements in relation to the regulation of political donations to be improved. But when we see, time after time, election after election in which the Labor Party spends very substantial amounts of money on campaigning and then its campaign is reinforced by equally substantial amounts of money spent by the union movement, when we see this time after time and then we see purported reforms which are completely silent on the question of the role of unions, which are completely silent on the question of funds going to the union movement, which are completely silent on the question of expenditures made by unions in the course of political campaigns, then is it any wonder that on this side of the House we look with a certain degree of scepticism on the motives of the Labor Party in putting forward the measures that are in this bill?

Many others before me have observed that there are very convenient arrangements by which union officials proceed in a smooth and uninterrupted fashion into parliament, moving from being a union official at one stage of their career to being a Labor parliamentarian at another stage of their career. It appears to be amply reflected in the very large number of members of this place and the other place on the other side of the chamber who come from backgrounds as union officials or industrial relations lawyers. Indeed, the recent book by former New South Wales Labor minister Rodney Cavalier, Power Crisis, is a very interesting read on the subject of the wholly unrepresentative nature of the modern Labor Party. This bill, which purports to constructively reform the regulatory framework dealing with political donations, fails to address the fundamental policy issues. It is an assemblage of measures purportedly for high-minded motives which is in fact calculated to deliver political advantage to the Labor Party.

I want to make three fundamental points this evening. First of all, the measures in this bill, by virtue of completely failing to address the presence and role of unions in the political process, in effect grant special treatment to the unions and to other third-party organisations which are overwhelmingly aligned with the Labor Party and which have a track record of supporting that party in the election process.

The second point I want to make is that, as on our side of politics we have repeatedly acknowledged, there is a clear need for a more rational framework in relation to the governance of political donations and the coalition has a stated appetite to participate in a rational reform framework. But, as we have repeatedly made the point, no sustainable outcome will be achieved in this area without a bipartisan consensus.

The third point I make is that this bill regrettably falls into a long tradition in which the Labor Party puts forward measures in this area which are purportedly about reform but are in fact designed to grant partisan advantage to one particular side of politics.

Let me turn firstly to the way in which the measures in this bill operate with effect to grant special treatment to the union movement. There is a provision in this bill which requires that donations to all units of a political party be treated as a single entity. But where is the mention in this bill of funding going to the Labor Party on the one hand and funding going to any union on the other also being aggregated when it comes to determining the total amount of the political donations which have been made? There is no mention in this bill of that important issue. This bill is completely silent on that important issue, even though it is very clear to even the most casual observer of the Australian political scene that the union movement and the Labor Party are intimately tied together, as is very clear in the recent book that I cited earlier, Power Crisis. People holding key organisational roles within the Labor Party such as presidents, members of the executive, are very frequently holders of senior offices in the union movement. For example, for Mr Michael Williamson, the current vice-president and immediate past president of the Australian Labor Party, his professional background is that he has been a member of the Health Services Union for over 30 years and general secretary for the past 10 years.

What is the significance of this point? There is nothing wrong with being a member of a union—I have no hesitation in making that point. I myself was a union member in the very distant past. But the important point is this: when it comes to the question of expenditure on political campaigns, it is naive in the extreme to look only at the amounts that are expended by registered political parties and to wilfully close one’s eyes to the very substantial expenditure which is made by the union movement in pursuit of political advantage for the Labor Party. Any attempt to reform political donations and the regime which applies to political donations in this country which is blind to that point—which wilfully ignores that point—is rightly and correctly open to the suspicion that the real motive of the changes is to grant partisan political advantage to the Labor Party. You need merely look at the extensive political campaign run against the coalition in the 2007 election by the ACTU on the topic of Work Choices or at the extensive campaign run against Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, in the 2010 election to see that the union movement works hand in glove with the Labor Party when it comes to political campaigns and campaign expenditure. Therefore, to propose a set of reforms which purportedly address important issues in the area of regulation of campaigns and campaign donations but which fail to address this most pressing issue is a wanton failure of the overall reform imperative, and leads inevitably to the suspicion that the primary motivation behind these purported reforms is in fact the securing of partisan political advantage for the Labor Party.

Why is it unfortunate that this package of reforms has come forward without addressing that most central and pressing issue? It is unfortunate because no sustainable outcome in this area will be achieved without a bipartisan consensus. Thoughtful people, people of goodwill, can acknowledge that there is scope for the reform of campaign financing. Thoughtful people, people of goodwill, can acknowledge that there are different approaches which could be taken to those which are presently taken in the Australian system. But anybody who looks at this issue objectively, who looks at the various participants in the political process and who looks at the expenditure which is put into campaigning could not but see the obvious fact that a very substantial player in political campaigning in Australia is the union movement. And the contribution made by the union movement—I am sure you would share my horror at this—is inevitably in support of the Labor Party, with some exceptions such as in Tasmania in 2004, as you might very well remember, Mr Deputy Speaker Adams.

The third point I want to make is that we have seen a regrettable tradition from Labor of putting forward measures which are purportedly designed to reform political campaign donations but which instead are designed to secure partisan political advantage. Any of us who live in New South Wales will have seen only too many examples of this, such as the cynical approach of the New South Wales Labor Party, which spent 15 years remorselessly hoovering up donations from property developers. It had a sudden rush of purity in 2009 and argued that it was no longer appropriate to accept donations from property developers and in turn passed legislation to that effect. When we see a political party which claims to be introducing reforms to the political donations system supposedly in the public interest and supposedly for high-minded motives, but which has a track record of introducing legislation in this area on a calculated basis to secure partisan political advantage, there can be very little surprise that those on this side of the House look at what is proposed in a jaundiced fashion.

Let me conclude by reiterating, as others from the coalition have done, that we remain open to genuine and sensible bipartisan reform in this area. Sadly, what has been put before the House tonight does not meet that test. It has been admitted by previous speakers that a primary motivation of the Labor Party in bringing forward this legislation, which is substantially similar to legislation which has been put forward and rejected by this parliament previously, is to give effect to the deal that was done between the Labor Party and the Greens. If we are to make reform in this area, there needs to be a better justification for it than honouring a deal that was made between the Labor Party and the Greens to keep the Labor Party in power. There needs to be a well thought through, solid policy foundation for these changes, a policy foundation which addresses the genuine issues in the area of political donations. Sadly, what has been put before the House in this bill does not meet that test, and it is for that reason that the coalition is not prepared to support this bill.

See this speech in context