House debates

Tuesday, 16 November 2010

Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2010

Second Reading

7:58 pm

Photo of Laura SmythLaura Smyth (La Trobe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak today in favour of the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2010, which will give effect to the government’s very important commitments to immediately reform the legislative regime that applies to donations, disclosure obligations and the regulation of funding for political parties and election campaigns in Australia. The bill seeks to ensure that election campaigns in this country remain fair and transparent and in order to do so seeks to improve our existing arrangements relating to the disclosure of political donation and election funding.

I would like to begin with a few remarks from the member for Mackellar. It was quite a fantastical dissertation, I must admit, but in between maligning various union members and unions in general, she raised the point that she was concerned that the Labor Party would be coercing coalition supporters to donate to both parties. Evidently the member for Mackellar is somewhat concerned with the competition that this might create. It is one of the more ludicrous assertions that this chamber is likely to hear, and what a terribly thin argument. Really it says less about the opposition’s concerns about election funding reform and more about its capacity to meaningfully mount a convincing argument about the merits of the coalition’s policies and their leadership.

Having attempted to malign a variety of unions in her remarks—unions which have unashamedly, unabashedly, campaigned against Tony Abbott’s and Bronwyn Bishop’s Work Choices—she anticipates that others in this debate will seek to similarly malign corporations.

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