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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4033 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

If Mr Moore wants to imagine dark conspiracies under which people conceal huge donations in return for political favours, then you are in the realms where no Act of parliament can save you. You are in the realms, then, of deliberate or malicious criminal activity, and that is not what this Act is about. This Act is about saying to donors to political parties, "You must declare your donations when they exceed the $1,500"; it is about saying to political parties, "You have to tell your donors that when they exceed the $1,500 they have to put in a declaration, and you must put in a declaration yourself when they exceed the $1,500". Mr Speaker, the safeguards are there and we should not allow Mr Moore to use hypotheticals to create the impression that there is some gaping loophole in the legislation which simply does not exist.

MR MOORE (9.15): Mr Speaker, the loophole does not exist; it is quite clear the loophole does not exist. You are about to make it; you are about to put a loophole into the law. I will illustrate now the way the law exists at the moment and until this is gazetted, if indeed it goes through tonight. All donations in the $1,500 threshold test are counted, with only one exception; and that is donations up to $99 made at a fundraising event, as defined in the Act; and that is what you are removing. We had Mr Whitecross going through this scenario about conspiracies and dark times and all those sorts of things. He may not want to attest to the morality of the Liberal Party or the Labor Party, but what would happen if you were to do a moral audit of any party? I would remind you that the Call to Australia Party may well be standing at the next election. They have introduced us to the notion of the moral audit. This is why I am quivering in my boots. As I say, I have little doubt about the morality of the Labor Party or the Liberal Party, of course. If the Call to Australia Party were to go through a moral audit, we may well reconsider our whole position on a whole range of issues, this being one. Mr Speaker, to be fair, I do say that a little bit tongue in cheek. I do not want any papers, even if they were to be sent this piece of Hansard, running stories that I am saying certain things about members of parliament in other parties. I think we all understand the moral audit argument.

It is not a question of this style of conspiracy. The question is: Why would you open up this further opportunity? Mr Whitecross says, "If we have a conspiracy, then it will be a criminal conspiracy and it can be dealt with under other legislation". I think that is probably a fair interpretation of what would go on. What we are providing, though, is a situation where, if my proposed amendments were to pass - I concede they now have a very slim chance, but I will try my persuasive powers one more time, Mr Speaker, and draw members' attention to the fact that a normal auditing practice was the practice of testing one donation against another donation, or one set of moneys against another set of moneys - that standard auditing practice, which would allow the Electoral Commissioner to easily check sums of money declared by a party against sums of money declared by individuals, would be undermined.

Where the commission carries out such an audit in the future I expect we will see a substantial sum of money donated to a party not declared, with money declared by individuals, but not knowing what money matches what and not knowing what money can be ticked off against the other one. I would hope the Electoral Commissioner, presuming this legislation passes, would report that issue back. At that time at least you will be able to reconsider this position. I believe this is a considerable change to the legislation and will allow the concealing of money. That simply does not happen at the moment.

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