Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4029 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Clause 19 will repeal that whole section about fundraising events. The change proposed by Mr Humphries would allow an exemption for amounts up to $499 paid in any way. The details of the donor who paid $499 every day for the whole year would not require notification by the parties. For ease of calculation, let us call it $500; multiply it by 350, and you realise that we are talking of about $175,000, if my calculation off the top of my head is correct. Did I get that correct, Mr Humphries? We are talking large sums of money. This is simply unacceptable, Mr Speaker.

This is the change that is proposed in this Assembly by a Government that claims it wants to be open. At the moment it simply cannot do that, but it will be able to if my proposals are not accepted. Even if the Commonwealth laws were always superior, we would need to amend our legislation every time they amended theirs anyway to keep up with them. This whole argument, this objective of matching the Commonwealth at all times, is quite silly. It is a good idea for us to try to be consistent with the Commonwealth where possible and where it will not weaken our legislation. I refer to Mr Humphries's own argument over the gun legislation. He said, and rightly so, that we should go with the Commonwealth on terms of unified weapons legislation but we ought not weaken our own legislation. That is what Mr Humphries said, and he had the unanimous support of this Assembly. I think the same principle should apply here. Yes, we should go with the Commonwealth where we can, but not at the price of weakening our own legislation.

I have already referred to the comments in the annual report of the Electoral Commission that said basically what I have just said. Yes, it does make good sense to remain consistent with the Commonwealth; but, on the other hand, the Electoral Commissioner made it very clear in that report that this would weaken the legislation. Although he did not make any specific recommendation as such, that message is clear to anybody who believes that we should ensure that our electoral legislation allows for openness in terms of disclosure of finances.

Why would we want to do this, Mr Speaker? It is very clear that, every time a member in this place votes on something, the community ought to feel that the decisions are made in a free and unencumbered way in terms of donations. Most people would say, "If somebody has donated $1,500 to a party, or a couple of hundred dollars to an Independent, in a year, that normally would not be considered enough to buy them off". That is why we would make this sort of exception. Most people would argue that it would take more than that. It is an ethical issue about what is a reasonable donation to a party. Somebody thinks the community is going to be better off having a particular party - the Liberals, Labor or somebody else - in power and, therefore, is prepared to put a bit of money in; as opposed to a group or somebody else who is donating specifically to try to ensure that they get the ear of the government. That is the distinction that we are dealing with here, and that is why it is that I have raised these matters.

I must say, Mr Speaker, there is something that distinguishes us from the Commonwealth, as far as this goes, and that is that an election campaign run at Commonwealth level is a very expensive item. We are talking millions of dollars. In the ACT, expenditure on election campaigns does not run at that kind of level. Some get up around $100,000, I understand; some even just top the $100,000, I understand. The parties might like to inform me so that I understand correctly. Mr Osborne ran his campaign, as I recall, for something like $1,800. Mine cost just over 10 grand, as I recall.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .