Page 1150 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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In case people might think that I am arguing for not having public funding because my party can get by very well without it, thank you very much, I can indicate that my party has had the same difficulties in raising enough money to fight what we would like to consider to be a reasonable campaign as has the Labor Party, I am sure. In at least the past two elections the Australian Labor Party has greatly outspent and outraised the Liberal Party. Therefore our particular interest in a sense would be for continuing public funding in order to keep up with the ALP, but we have no interest in that sense. As I have indicated, our position consistently has been that we do not have public funding here or anywhere else.
I had commissioned an amendment to cap public funding and, if the idea was to help minor parties or Independents to participate in the process, to direct more of the money in that direction than would otherwise have been the case. I regret that that does not seem to have gained any support from the cross benches, or not enough, so I will not be proceeding with that amendment. It is a pity, Madam Speaker, that we consider it necessary, in this day and age of straitened financial circumstances, to be ploughing money into giving political parties the chance to run glossier ads, bigger features in newspapers and more frequent appearances by people like the Chief Minister on television advertisements. I think that in the present circumstances we could be putting public money to better use.
MR MOORE (12.56): I think, Madam Speaker, the clue to the issue here was given when Mr Humphries pointed out that the Liberal Party and the Labor Party were strapped for funds and that this would only help them. That makes people with perhaps not the same commitment as Mr Humphries to equity and fairness vulnerable to seeking funds from people who would expect a return. When we look at WA Inc. and other situations of this kind in Australia and elsewhere, there is very rarely a straightforward and appropriate agreement that says, "Yes, I will give you money if you deliver this". It does not work that way; it works in a much more insidious way, I think, in that there is a gift of money that requires an understanding that you will be looked after.
Part of the process - only part of the process - of working against that influence over political parties is public funding. Other parts are to do with ensuring that the process is open, that donations are declared, and so forth, and that is already accounted for. Whilst Mr Humphries makes it clear that this will advantage, at the moment at least, the Labor and Liberal parties more than others, it does give individual people without the wherewithal to run an election campaign the opportunity to have a chance to do so. I think that that is a critical factor which fits into part of this concept of enfranchising people and giving them the opportunity to run.
The other point I would like to deal with is the issue Mr Humphries raised of capping election funding. I think that in many ways that would have met the concerns that Mr Humphries has raised. Initially I was very attracted to the notion of capping electoral funding. But I decided that it would not work; that there are so many ways of getting around the capping of election funding that it would not be - - -
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