Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the urgency motion, but, like my fellow contributors to this debate from the opposition benches, I also note that we are debating this issue today as part of a desperate attempt by the Greens political party to distract attention from the fact that yet again they have done a deal with the Liberal Party. Last time it was to let companies off the hook when it comes to tax transparency. This time it is to disenfranchise millions of voters. To distract us, they want to talk about political donations.

I will be really clear: I support reforms that make our political donations system fairer, that give voice to ordinary Australians and to the groups that represent them, and that lead to decision making that preferences the interests of the nation over sectional interests. That is not what the Greens stand for, however. It pays to remember during this debate what the Greens did the last time they had a hand in redesigning a system around donations, and that was the time they did another deal, on that occasion with the O'Farrell Liberal government in New South Wales.

In 2011 the Greens supported the Election Funding, Expenditure and Disclosures Amendment Bill in the New South Wales parliament. This legislation would have allowed only individuals to make donations, not organisations. The Greens like to talk up the fact that the consequence of this legislation was that it limited corporations' donations. However, everybody should understand that it also had hidden provisions that stopped not-for-profit organisations, member based organisations and sporting groups from participating in the political process. It meant that organisations like Unions New South Wales, like the Council of Social Service in New South Wales and like the Australian Industry Group were unable to allow their members to express a view in the context of a political debate.

One really wonders about the motivation of the Greens in signing on to legislation of that kind. What this legislation was really about was preventing organisations from running political campaigns against the government. The legislation would have hampered campaigns exactly like the Your Rights at Work campaign, where the union movement stepped up to protect workers' wages and conditions from an ideological attack by an arrogant government, an arrogant Liberal government. The legislation would have made it more difficult for nurses groups, for instance, to wage a campaign about the government's plans to cut health funding.

We need to understand the context of this, because we should be concerned about the influence of money on Australian politics, but collective action and collective campaigns are some of the only ways available for ordinary people to make their voices heard. The Greens New South Wales legislation would have allowed individuals to make donations of $2,000. Well, that is terrific—it is great for those individuals that have $2,000 sitting around. But let us be very clear: the nurses, the firefighters, the ordinary Australians that choose to take part in Australian trade unions do not have that amount of money sitting around—a lazy $2,000—waiting to donate it to politics. Instead, they pool what little money they have, what little they can spare, and they use unions and their member organisations to amplify their voices, to make sure the voices of the small people are heard in a very big national debate. The High Court recognised this and it struck down the Greens supported legislation as being an impermissible burden on the constitutional right to political communication.

I want to reiterate in closing that of course people on this side of the chamber are committed to a political system that is fair, transparent and modern and that gives people a chance to make themselves heard on the issues that impact on them. In my home state of New South Wales, our leader, Luke Foley, has taken decisive action, and New South Wales Labor will become the first Australian political party to disclose political donations as they come in, with that system to be up and running in 2017. There have been many problems in New South Wales—people on both sides of the aisle have compromised themselves—and that action is urgent and necessary. Corruption and influence-peddling is always unacceptable, but we should not forget that, when the Greens last looked at this issue, their answer was an unconstitutional attempt to deny— (Time expired)