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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4016 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: In fact, disappointed people who have donated much more to the Liberal Party in the last two years. So, $25, I am afraid, does not buy you very much. I do not think that disclosing the $25 donor is going to expose the nefarious relationship between parties and these people. As Mr Whitecross indicated, this is about removing unnecessary red tape from the process whereby parties run themselves as organisations and provide for the running of elections and the fielding of candidates in elections.

It may not seem to the ordinary citizen of this community that there is any great value in allowing political parties to focus their efforts on campaigning and disseminating their message, as opposed to filling in paperwork for particular government authorities; but I would argue that the democratic process in this country is essentially about that fielding of candidates, not about disclosing where it was that those candidates got every last dollar that might be used to run their campaigns. I see this as an innovation, a reform which is likely to improve the accountability of our electoral system, not detract from it.

Mr Moore claimed that the provisions weakened ACT disclosure laws; but I re-emphasise that this is about providing for the disclosure laws to focus on the important issues, not on the minutia which is not important. He also described the legislation as inconsistent with open government. Well, hardly! The provisions that apply in the ACT are still extremely open and extremely transparent when compared with what existed in this country only 10 years ago and with what is still the case in many, if not most, Western democracies at this time. We have a very high degree of disclosure in Australia and in the ACT. I do not think we need to apologise to anybody about that. It is transparency, I think, which is much to be envied by other people in other nations.

It was not surprising to hear Ms Horodny's opposition to the legislation. Let me make just two comments about her words on this Bill. She described this as a rushed Bill. This legislation was presented to the Assembly almost two months ago. With great respect, I do not think that dealing with it after it being two months on the table amounts to rushing the legislation. If it does, then we rush an awful lot of legislation through this house. Secondly, Mr Speaker, she is right; it is theoretically possible for somebody to make a profit under these arrangements if they spend very little, do spectacularly well and get a greater amount of electoral funding under the formula provided for in the Act than they have actually spent in the election. I do not think the Greens have anything to worry about on that score. I think that occurrence will be very rare.

But the very great burden that imposes on candidates and political parties to comply with the disclosure provisions about where money is spent, quite frankly, is just not justified in terms of public accountability. When we say we are in favour of removing red tape, that is not just empty rhetoric; it is not about removing provisions for the sake of removing provisions in legislation and regulations; it is about working out what is important in terms of making our economy, our society, our political system work better. What someone thought was a good idea when a piece of legislation was drafted 15 years ago may not apply today. This falls into that category. Although Ms Horodny and Mr Moore have spoken at length about this legislation, they have not actually told us what it is that is important about the provisions being removed, I do not think.

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