Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

It also obviously comes with compliance risks if you make a mistake. It makes very small entities that are not geared up for this liable to public exposure and potential threats from other actors in this process. Again, I've said consistently for some time now that we believe the current threshold is appropriate. It's an appropriate balance between facilitating participation in a democratic process and ensuring that the public interest of appropriate disclosure is maintained. Senator Lambie quite accurately related a private conversation that I had with her this week. It's just an observation of fact. Small-business people making small donations to our side of politics do feel intimidated by some of the consequences that come, as a result of that donation, from other very passionate and committed actors supporting a different side of politics. We don't believe people who are supporting their team or party of choice at that level should be exposed to that. People who participate at a more significant level, of course, need to be able to justify what they do in a public sense, and there is the appropriate disclosure and transparency requirement there. But we believe that the threshold where it currently is is appropriate.