Page 1675 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008
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You could extend this principle involving people who do business with governments and look at the area of pubs and clubs as well. They do business with government; they are impacted significantly by government legislation. The recent Four Corners story gave us an insight into some of those activities, but I struggle to find that it is fair or reasonable to go down the road of identifying business sectors and starting to target them in terms of the donation process. I am not aware of any impropriety by donors in the ACT, except for one celebrated example that came to light in the media in 2004 when some wanted to enjoy the good times. In light of that absence of impropriety, I will not be supporting the Greens’ amendments that seek to punish members of the property industry for offences they have not committed.
Dr Foskey: Isn’t it actually about transparency?
MR MULCAHY: Dr Foskey says it is about transparency, but I do not know why we have transparency in relation to property developers while not worrying about anybody else. We are not saying, “Let’s target union officials or unions that might be putting money in and treat them in a different fashion.” They sit down and negotiate with the government over the most significant outlay that the territory makes in terms of an individual area of activity—that is, the cost of salaries and pay rises. Should we say, “Well, we should treat them differently in terms of political donations”? What about employer groups in the ACT? Should we say, “Well, they kick money along to members in this place and we should treat them differently”?
The problem I have is not with the issue of transparency; the problem I have is with targeting individual groups in the community that might have cause to have business with the ACT government in either procurement or negotiations and then singling them out for specific treatment. If we have good monitoring of the donations arrangement and there is compliance with the limits that are within the legislation then I do not see why one group of people who want to support the political process, wherever they sit on the political spectrum, should be treated in some different fashion from other groups.
I have said before in this place that there is an increasing tendency to view property developers as being in the lowest strata of society, but I do not think that is justified in this community as it ignores the positive contribution that many of them have made to the Canberra community. I believe the Greens’ amendments in this regard are not needed, and for that reason I will not be voting in support of them.
In addition, I flag that I will not be supporting their amendment to require weekly publishing of donations and gifts from candidates and political parties. My concern on this front is purely practical. I believe that it would represent a significant administrative burden on candidates that would not greatly increase the transparency of the reporting requirements, especially in the midst of a hectic election campaign period. Whilst the major parties—particularly the government party; not so much the Liberals but the government—may have somewhat better resources in their organisation, I think that to expect smaller parties, individual candidates and the like to provide weekly reports on donations and gifts is unduly onerous. For that reason, I cannot bring myself to support that particular amendment.
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