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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1943 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

maintain consistency with Commonwealth due dates. No substantive changes are made to section 231 other than those made by the original bill.

New clause 29A provides for annual returns by associated entities. The substantive changes being made to section 231B by this amendment are to provide that details relating to amounts paid by an associated entity to a person do not have to be disclosed. Annual returns submitted by associated entities will not need to identify gifts that are not receipts or state the purpose for which the amount was received, and the changes contained in the bill delaying by four weeks the due date for receipt of annual returns during an election year have been removed to maintain consistency with the Commonwealth due dates.

New clause 29B substitutes a new section 232, "Amounts received". The substantive changes being made to section 232 by this amendment are to provide that individual amounts of less than $1,500 do not have to be taken into account when determining whether the identity of the person giving amounts to a party, ballot group, MLA or associated entity has to be disclosed and to require details about the origins of loans to be disclosed along the lines of requirements set out in the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

New clause 29B also omits section 233. This section currently provides that specified details related to accounts paid by a party, ballot group, MLA or associated entity to a person have to be disclosed. These details are no longer required under the Commonwealth disclosure scheme.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health, Housing and Community Services) (10.14): I move amendment 1 on sheet A, as circulated in my name, to Mr Stefaniak's amendment No 3 [see schedule 8, part 1, at page 1992].

A combination of my amendments 1, 4 and 6 effectively reinserts sections of the act. This will ensure that we impose an obligation on parties to provide details of expenditure. They are trying to get out of providing details of their expenditure. We have to prevent the repeal of section 233.

I put these amendments on sheet A to show that they are all dependent on one another. We are attempting to remove from the act section 233, which requires parties to reveal their expenditure. For some reason they do not want to reveal their expenditure. This is on the expenditure side of things, not on the receipt side of things.

In the returns I tabled earlier the amounts paid would have required a huge amount of work-in the case of the Liberal Party, 15 to 18.

Mr Humphries: Are there two pages of those?

MR MOORE: No, just one page.

Mr Humphries: Anything on the previous page?

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