Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I have only just started! At various Senate committees, who was the greatest protagonist of this tax deductibility for those who—no names mentioned—might just want to set up an online newspaper? The greatest protagonist was former Senator Bob Brown, the then leader of the Australian Greens. He did not declare an interest at the time. Mr Wood is quoted as saying that the $1.6 million he gave to the Greens was the best investment he had ever made. People can draw their own conclusions from this. I only raise these issues involving the Labor Party, the Greens and Senator Xenophon because clearly we need to have a look at these sorts of things.

I know the Greens receive enormous amounts of money—as does Mr Katter, I might say—from the union movement. It comes from the CFMEU, a union that is always before the court for criminal activity and breaches of its act, and the Greens and Mr Katter both happily accept donations from the CFMEU. We do not know where the CFMEU gets its money from. We know it does not pay tax. We know from recorded evidence in various court cases that the CFMEU does deals with some unscrupulous employers. Do we know whether those employers who pay big money to the CFMEU—who then pay it to the Greens and the Labor Party and Mr Katter—and those companies that the CFMEU gets its money from are Chinese companies, Indian companies, English companies or American companies? We really need to look into that and see where these moneys are coming from.

I notice the Greens and the Labor Party are always keen to want certain donors banned, but they never seem to raise the issue of the union movement, who are completely unaccountable to the Australian—

Senator Waters interjecting—

You have raised that, have you? So you are going to insist that donations by unions are no longer allowed. I am pleased to hear that, Senator Waters. That is very, very good news. I wonder how you will account to the CFMEU—and, I think, to the MUA as well, wasn't it? I will be interested to see how you are going to explain to the CFMEU and the MUA that you are no longer going to allow them to make these donations to the Greens political party, because the Greens are always holier than thou when it comes to these sorts of things, but they are always a bit embarrassed when people point out that the CFMEU—that union that is always in trouble before the courts—made substantial donations to the Greens political party.

One might then ask: why do you think it is that the Greens political party and the Labor Party were so antagonistic to the ABCC? They voted against it time and time again. If you were to follow their donations, if you were to follow why they are here—their raison d'etre—they are here because of donations not only from big business, in the form of Mr Graeme Wood, but also from the CFMEU and, I think, the MUA. And if I am wrong there I will apologise for that later, but I am certain about the CFMEU.

These sorts of donations really need to be looked at a little further, and I think Mr Turnbull's floating of the idea that donations should be only from individuals seems to be a very good one. That is something that needs to be further investigated, and it is something that I hope the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters will do. So whilst I am not certain about committing to comprehensive and immediate political donations reform, I do think the JSCEM should look into this— (Time expired)