John McVeigh (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry, representing the Minister for Employment. Will the minister inform the House why it is important to bring a consistent and well thought out approach to the reform of donations in election campaigns? How does a considered approach to donations reform maintain the integrity of our system?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Groom for his question. It is important, of course, to reform foreign donations to political parties in this country, and that is why the Prime Minister at the National Press Club on 1 February said:

... Australians expect us to ensure that only Australians and Australian businesses can seek to influence Australian elections, whether via a political party, an activist group like GetUp or an association or a union.

The Leader of the Opposition came into the chamber today to play catch-up with the government, to play catch-up with the Prime Minister, who has been talking about electoral reform for the last 10 years since he entered the parliament, and the Leader of the Opposition introduced a private member's bill today on foreign donations. This does not surprise me because the Labor Party knows a lot about foreign donations. I am not talking about the Ba'ath Party in 1977; I am talking about much more recent political history.

In 2013 to 2015, the Labor Party received $4 million worth of foreign donations from China alone and the coalition only received $2 million. In fact, Labor received double the level of foreign donations than the coalition received in 2013 to 2015. There is more. They know quite a bit about foreign donations because Senator Sam Dastyari's career went under the bus because he thought it was perfectly reasonable for Chinese businesses to pay his personal debts. Of course, Senator Dastyari resigned, but apparently all is forgiven because he was brought back to the front bench last week. So all is forgiven. Six months in Coventry; now he is back on the front bench of the Labor Party again.

So we are not going to be lectured by the Labor Party on foreign donations or electoral reform of any kind and not by this Leader of the Opposition who entirely forgot a $40,000 donation from Unibilt for his 2007 election campaign until he had to appear at the Haydon royal commission nine years later. Then suddenly he remembered it again and updated his register a few days before he had to appear at the royal commission. So we will not be lectured by the Labor Party on electoral reform, especially not when you analyse the Leader of the Opposition's bill and discover that his bill would still allow the Chinese businesses who gave Labor $1.355 million in 2013 to continue to do so and not when you realise that the Labor Party's bill would still allow Senator Dastyari's personal debts to be paid by Chinese businesses. So what we have introduced here is a smokescreen by the Labor Party to cover their embarrassment about the Leader of the Opposition's lack of credibility, one of his frontbencher's misunderstanding about the ethics of politics, and the foreign donations they have been taking for decades from overseas. Do not look at what he says; look at what he does.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.