Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan) to a question without notice asked by Senator Di Natale today relating to foreign donations.

We recently saw the Manager of Opposition Business stand down as a result of taking a donation from a foreign entity. But let us not kid ourselves for a moment that that action is the end of the matter. The issue has been raised and has been very well ventilated in recent weeks, but the resignation of Senator Dastyari is not an end to this. In fact, his resignation achieves nothing if we do not take on the substantive matter of electoral donation reform.

I know the caravan moves on very quickly in this place and it may seem that this issue has been dealt with, but it has not. Until the influence of large foreign corporate entities—in fact, external influences right across the board—is dealt then people will quite rightly continue to raise questions about the decisions that are being made in this place and whether they are being made in the interests of the community or whether they are being made in the interests of those large cashed-up donors.

The Special Minister of State along with the Attorney-General tried to draw the distinction between donations from foreign entities and the payment of an individual senator's electorate expenses. I think that is tricky.