Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

The Senate is facing a clear filibuster here by the Australian Greens. There is an old saying in politics that if you win you do not gloat; if you lose you do not moan. In Tasmania, when the Labor Party lost, as it deserved to, instead of casting around looking for little religious groups as scapegoats, it looked at itself. That is why the Tasmanian Labor Party is now back in government.

As a Liberal Party, it took us a little bit longer. We looked at ourselves; that is why our vote increased at the last state election in Tasmania. However, the humiliation of the Greens, when their vote goes down, as it did in the last Senate election, is that they continually brag as to how they will win a Senate seat outright and then scrape in on preferences. In the Tasmanian context, they bragged how they would win six seats; they were lucky to get four.

They are desperately casting around for scapegoats. Can I just say this: when a political party and a leader of a political party start scapegoating a religious minority for their own political purposes, the alarm bells of history should be ringing loud and clear, because we in this country allow lawful religious minorities to exist which we may well disagree with on quite substantial issues. The Exclusive Brethren have been mentioned time and time again by embittered, nasty Greens who are not willing to look at their own policies as being the architect of their downfall. It was not the Exclusive Brethren. It was a number of individuals, as I understand it, that placed advertisements. The Greens are the architects of their downfall, and what we have heard are vindictive, bitter diatribes from the two Tasmanian Greens senators.

First of all, let me deal with the issue of the address of a Mr S Hales, whoever he may be; I am willing to accept that he may well be an Exclusive Brethren member. Why did he give the address of whatever school it was? I do not know what was in his thinking, but I do know what is in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. Section 328(5) says:

address of a person means an address, including a full street address and suburb or locality, at which the person can usually be contacted during the day.

If Mr S Hales, being aware of that legislation, says: ‘I leave home at eight o’clock in the morning. Chances are I do not get home until after 5.30 of a night. The address at which I can usually be located during the day is my place of employment,’ and therefore that is the place of employment given on the authorisation of his political advertisement. There is nothing wrong or untoward with that. In fact, it is abiding by the provision of the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

But, of course, the Greens do not know that. In their bitterness, in their manic pursuit of a small religious sect, they do not even bother to do the most basic of research. Whether or not Mr Hales has put in a return I do not know. I understand that he and a few other people—not only people that are Exclusive Brethren members—who put in political advertisements are often not aware of the return requirements and the Electoral Commission then looks them up and, in the normal course of events, asks them to put in a return.

We are then asked: is it lawful for this group, the Exclusive Brethren, to tell their people not to vote? I indicate that section 245(14) indicates that being a part of a person’s ‘religious duty to abstain from voting constitutes a valid and sufficient reason for the failure of the elector to vote’. That was in the Commonwealth Electoral Act way before Prime Minister Howard became Prime Minister and was doing all these ‘secret deals’ with the Exclusive Brethren. And do you know what? In 2004, how many people do you think relied on that provision in the Commonwealth Electoral Act? Would you say it represented about 10,000? I do not know what figure represents the Exclusive Brethren adult numbers in Australia, but was it 20,000 or 30,000? The Greens do not know. I can tell them: it was in excess of 62,000 of our fellow Australians. It is not only the Exclusive Brethren that hold that religious view. Of course, if the Australian Greens were consistent, they would be saying, ‘What about the Jehovah’s Witnesses and other groups in the community that have that same religious view?’ But, no—Jehovah’s Witnesses are good in not voting because they do not dare to attack the Greens.

The sin of a few Exclusive Brethren members has been to expose the Greens’ policies and to invite people to look up the Greens’ website. That was the real shocker for most of the people—the invitation to look at the Greens website. I can tell you, if someone were to fund advertisements saying, ‘Look up the Liberal Party website,’ I would be saying: ‘Good on you. Thank you very much. You are a mate of mine.’ I would have thought the Greens would have been delighted that people were being encouraged to look at their website. This conspiracy about the Exclusive Brethren just does not exist. Over 62,000 of our fellow Australians have given that reason to the Australian Electoral Commission for not voting; and I doubt there are 62,000 of this secret group, the Exclusive Brethren. Senator Bob Brown seems to know a lot about this group that is allegedly so very secretive.

Allow me to move on to other matters raised by the Australian Greens. The name D Burgess was mentioned; I do not know fully in what regard, other than he or she placed an advertisement. That is being looked at by the Australian Electoral Commission. In relation to the Tasmanian election, can I tell you that that is not covered by the Commonwealth Electoral Act, as you should well know. If the Tasmanian parliament is of the view, then fine—let them deal with it.

However, in relation to the assertion that the Exclusive Brethren or individual members of the Exclusive Brethren community lied to the electorate in relation to advertisements, that is the old hoary chestnut. We remember those advertisements that the Greens and the Wilderness Society ran saying that certain sections of the Franklin River would be inundated, though clearly they would not be inundated. Those ads were clearly misleading and deceptive. We also know, when we hear the Greens saying that old-growth forests in Tasmania are not protected—when over one million hectares are protected—that that is nonsense. It is unsustainable by all the objective evidence.

We can go backwards and forwards. We can talk about Tasmanians for a Better Future, or whatever they are called, as a secretive group, and the timber community now being a secretive group. The business sector is a secretive group. What about the Wilderness Society? What about Doctors for Forests? What about the Huon Valley Environment Centre? Interestingly enough, Senator Milne’s advertisement would require compulsory identification of a third party, including the identification of all persons. As a result, if the Wilderness Society were to become involved in an advertisement, every single donor and every single member of the Wilderness Society would need to be exposed publicly. I happen to believe in certain laws of privacy and consideration of that, and I think most of our fellow Australians would agree.

In relation to the public relations firm that Senator Milne spoke so long about—and I hope it was cathartic for her—can I comment on how the law applies to federal elections. At a federal election if a public relations company received funds to conduct a campaign from a person or entity that is not a political party, a candidate or an associated entity, the public relations firm would have a disclosure obligation under section 305. The PR firm would be required to disclose all gifts, donations or payments for services received at any time that were used by the PR firm for the campaign. The disclosure would have to reveal the amount of money in the gift and provide the names and details of the persons or entities that had made the gift. This is called a third-party disclosure—that is, not from a political party, candidate or associated entity. In other words, if the circumstances described by Senator Milne occur during a federal election, the PR firm would have to disclose who had paid for the campaign. The bill repeals 305 and replaces it with 314AEC, as it happens, which will require the same sort of disclosure, except on an annual basis. In other words, the information that Senator Milne wants will be disclosed more frequently. Rather than giving political tirades, could I invite honourable senators to in fact look at the provisions of the existing legislation, get their heads around it and ask specific questions.