Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to continue our work to get big money out of politics. I acknowledge the work done on this issue over so many years by my colleagues Larissa Waters as well as former senators Lee Rhiannon and Richard Di Natale, alongside academics, integrity experts and civil society organisations, who have consistently pushed for strong political donation reform.

The Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Banning Dirty Donations) Bill 2026 is pretty straightforward. It bans political donations from industries with a clear history of using money to buy influence and get privileged access to decision-makers. It also places a $3,000 cap on individual political donations per election term to reduce the outsized influence by wealthy donors in this place. The industries covered by this bill include fossil fuel companies, gambling corporations, banks, tobacco companies, liquor interests, defence contractors and pharmaceutical corporations. These are the industries that have repeatedly used political donations and lobbying to shape outcomes in their favour and against the Australian people. Last year's electoral reforms simply didn't go far enough. The government's deal with the coalition kept disclosure thresholds far too high and failed to deal with donations from industries that pose the greatest risks to political integrity, industries that simply should not have a say in politics. The tobacco industry don't have a seat at the table anymore because they're dangerous, and neither should these other corporate interests have that sort of influence.

Australians are increasingly frustrated by political parties who seem more accountable to their corporate donors than to the Australian people—whether it's delays on climate action, watering down gambling reforms or our gas giants continuing to receive favourable tax treatment. While people struggle with cost-of-living expenses, keeping a roof over their heads, buying fresh groceries every week and affording their medicine, multinational gas corporations get the royal treatment. This bill is about restoring some balance in the system. It is about making it harder for wealthy industries and individuals to buy influence in this place and ensuring that communities and individuals are not drowned out by corporate money.

Let's air some of the corporate parties' dirty laundry, shall we? Here are just some of the receipts for the last decade: Woodside gave $1.2 million to Labor while they get their climate-wrecking projects rubber stamped again and again. Santos slipped Labor over $800,000 while racking up a decade of paying zero corporate tax. A decade of zero corporate tax cost Santos just $800,000. Chevron handed over more than $600,000 to Labor, who recently gifted them $300 billion worth of Australian gas for free—I mean, a pretty good business for these corporates. And Sportsbet funnelled almost half a million dollars to Labor while gambling reform sits on the sidelines. Families are being ripped apart, suicides are increasing every year and the government refuse to act because they have their hands out for those corporate donations from Sportsbet, and what a great shame.

Do you know what? Those sitting on the other side of the chamber are not off the hook either. Hancock Prospecting handed around 750,000 grand to the Libs while they greenwashed their fossil fuel expansion. Adani Mining—another $750,000 to the Liberal Party while successive governments swept the coal company's scandals under the carpet. And Tabcorp—a neat $650,000 to the Liberal Party while gambling adverts target our children. The receipts go on and on and on.

One Nation with their shiny, new private jet—I will have plenty more to say about them later, about just how deep in the trough their noses actually are, so don't get too comfortable. You do not have to dig deep to see the pattern: big dirty money funnelled in, terrible policies coming out. These are not donations; these are investments in the major political parties in this country and, frankly, they are excellent business for the big corporates. A few hundred thousand dollars here and there to the old parties and you practically get to write the policy for yourself. The reality is, though, someone sitting at home will never have that kind of influence. They will never have that kind of influence over the government elected to represent them unless they have huge piles of cash ready to go.

What a week, budget week, a week that exposed the whole ecosystem of corporate influence in all of its polished, glossy, champagne-soaked glory, a budget that reads less like an economic plan and more like a thank you card to corporate donors, and a breakup letter to everyday Australians, who are being absolutely slogged at the check-out and at the petrol bowser. Labor had the opportunity of a decade, of a generation with the community backing the expert evidence, the political mandate and with the public appetite to finally stand up to the gas cartels and tax our gas. But what did they do? They folded—of course they did. Instead, we got a gas reservation policy so confusing that even their own ministers cannot explain it. Contracted gas, uncontracted gas—it is governing by press release. The only thing clear is the bottom line. With zero meaningful revenue, this will not raise a cent and that suits the gas corporations just fine—of course it does.

I know this pressure is real, Labor. You can feel the mood shifting across this nation, across communities, across political lines. People have had an absolute gutful. They are saying 'enough is enough'. They want a fair return on their resources. They want a budget that works for them, not just for big gas and big corporate interests and the one per cent, because that is what this budget delivers for them—one per cent. They want a budget that properly funds universal child care, that does not rip off people living with disabilities, that delivers real cost-of-living relief right now, not scraps down the track, and that accelerates a transition away from the fossil fuels that are driving the climate and energy crises we are all experiencing. You do not get to say you have listened to the polling, the experts, the economists and the community when you then deliver a budget that so squarely lands on the side of the same corporate interests bankrolling this political system. This budget has shown us exactly who Labor works for: big gas and one per cent. It's not you, not me, not the people who voted them in—the people who funded them to get in. Remember this: while the dirty money keeps on flowing, they will keep doing this time and time again.

This week, I thought I would attend one of the infamous, exclusive budget-fundraising events hosted by the Labor Party mere minutes after they deliver the budget. If you haven't heard about them, these are exclusive parties where CEOs, corporate representatives and lobbyists rub shoulders with the Prime Minister and senior ministers, sip champagne and quietly celebrate another year of selling Australians out and selling our gas for nothing while no doubt offering a few helpful suggestions about next year's budget, which might improve their bottom line. If you want to get into this event, it's 5½ thousand dollars a pop, thank you very much. I turned up at Hotel Realm to discover that I wasn't invited. Apparently, you need 5½ thousand dollars to get in the door. It seems not being a multinational corporation with a proven track record of splashing cash around parliament worked against me, and it works against you too.

I'm sure that the Australian energy producers were in there, though. You can imagine—the same gas lobbyists who, when asked at the gas tax inquiry whether they would shout the Prime Minister around if they could avoid a new tax in the budget, just shrugged their shoulders. But a round of beers or even 5½ thousand dollars for a ticket to that all-exclusive event is so bloody cheap when you consider what these dirty donations buy these companies. Their members chipped in a million dollars a pop to run a campaign to kill a gas tax; 5½ thousand bucks is peanuts to them. A round of beers is nothing when you think about the $17 billion that they along with their ALP minister mates, former and present, saved their multinational mates. For those who missed the ALP's night of nights or want to back it up, they can head along tonight to the shadow Treasurer's fundraiser for the bargain price of $2,000 a pop. What an absolute steal.

These engagements aren't just about influence; they are practically job interviews for life after parliament. Since 2001, nearly every single resources minister has gone to work for the fossil fuel industry. Ministers, MPs and senior advisers leave parliament and walk straight into high-paying jobs in the industries they used to regulate—Shame!—like Mike Kelly, Labor's former defence minister, who quit parliament and immediately took up a job with American weapons and data-mining giant Palantir; and Thomas Duke, former director of policy for Minister Clare O'Neil, who went straight from writing Labor's five per cent housing deposit policy to working for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The architect of a policy that was always designed to work better for the big banks than for young people now works for one of the big banks. You cannot make this stuff up.

Right now, the Minerals Council of Australia is deciding who will be its next chair. It's two lead candidates are two former Labor politicians: former member for Hunter Joel Fitzgibbon, cofounder of the parliamentary friends of coal; and Mark McGowan, a renowned defender of fossil fuel interests. Who will be the next to follow Stephen Conroy into the gambling lobby after he helped to bury the Murphy report? I wonder if Madeleine King—the minister for Woodside or Japan or resources, whatever it is today—will flip a coin in deciding who she goes to work for next out of these interests.

And look, there's one elephant in the room that I haven't addressed yet: a party that was just gifted a private aeroplane worth millions of dollars bought by some of Australia's richest people. Pauline Hanson's One Nation, the so-called party of the people, now has a shiny new jet to fly between corporate dinners and million-dollar fundraisers. But the public are not fooled. Australians know that a gift worth more than most family homes comes with strings attached. One Nation is turbocharging its billionaire cavalry before donation reforms tighten up at the end of the year. They are rushing that money in before scrutiny ramps up, because they know that it will not pass the pub test. The far right in Australia is the fossil fuel industry in a trench coat.

One Nation is a voice for battlers but a vote for the billionaires. Lining up with mining billionaires, with gas corporations and wealthy elites and partying at Mar-a-Lago with the mad king Donald Trump. That is how One Nation rolls, folks. It is repulsive, and Australians have had an absolute gutful. They wanted an end to it, and that is exactly what this bill will do. It will stop the corrupting influence of dirty donations in this country. It will go some way towards restoring the public's trust that they elect politicians to represent them, not the cashed-up donors crawling the halls of this parliament. As a Greens senator, I find the idea of charging for access for a policy discussion completely unfathomable. After this government's budget, which rips money away from people with disabilities and funnels billions of dollars into weapons and subsidies for fossil fuels, the Australian people are, rightly, asking, 'Who does this government work for?'

Let's be clear: the major parties and One Nation do not want to change the status quo that has benefitted them for decades. They will fight this kicking and screaming, but the only thing that terrifies them more than losing these funding streams is losing seats at the next election. Together, we need to work to get dirty donations out of politics. We need proper donation caps. We need to close those loopholes that funnel dark money through our political system. We need to ban donations from harmful industries that should never have a voice in this place. Until we achieve these things, we will never, never have a parliament that truly serves the people.

To those of you out there watching, appalled that this continues to happen in 2026, we need to organise. The next federal election is not too far away, but it is going to take public pressure right across this country to break this two-party system that has depended on corporate fossil fuel interests and gambling interests for far too long, and to turn this around and have a parliament that genuinely represents you, not the political and elite class in this country.