Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Special Minister of State. Will the minister explain to the House the importance of protecting Australia's electoral system from foreign influence and the actions the Morrison government is taking to combat foreign influence in our elections?

Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister and Cabinet) | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member of Barker for his question, knowing his concern for foreign influences in our democracy, because now more than ever we must be alert and ensure we have the appropriate laws in place to stop foreign entities, foreign governments, foreign companies and foreign foundations from infiltrating our Australian electoral system. Only Australians should influence the Australian electoral system. Only Australian money should be used to influence Australians and how they cast a vote. And, when money is received by anybody, it needs to be appropriately disclosed in accordance with the laws of this land.

But our national security agencies are warning us about threats to our democracy from overseas. The ASIO director-general recently unveiled that they had disrupted a foreign interference plot in the lead-up to an Australian electoral event—

Andrew Wallace (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lalor will leave under 94(a).

Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister and Cabinet) | Link to this | Hansard source

The ASIO director-general said:

… we are seeing attempts at foreign interference at all levels of government, in all states and territories.

In their annual threat assessment ASIO revealed that a person linked to a foreign government recently attempted to fund political candidates in an unspecified Australian election. They were doing the bidding of offshore masters, knowingly and covertly seeking to advance the interests of the foreign power and, in that process, undermine our sovereignty. That's why this government has introduced the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Foreign Influences and Offences) Bill that we hope to see pass this House today. This builds on our reforms in 2018 to ensure that foreign donations to Australian political parties are banned. Last year the government successfully tightened laws to ensure that these foreign donation bans were also applied to Independents and to the associated entities that support them.

The passage of this bill will stop foreign governments, along with foreign businesses, foreign organisations and foreign foundations, from influencing and directly running election campaigns in Australia. There are those who want to undermine our democratic system and our processes, and they will do so by using their foreign money to spread deception and doubt in our electoral processes.

There are those overseas—foreign governments, foreign businesses and foreign charities—that will seek to replace sitting members of parliament with their choices for candidates. They will seek to elect the parties of their choice over those who they don't want to see govern. We must be alert to the risks of foreign interference in our elections. It is the responsibility of this parliament to pass this bill today, and to take the threats to our democracy seriously.