Page 1729 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008
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benefactor, which is the Labor Club, especially in relation to gaming machine revenue. This is very much a new provision, as opposed to the existing act, and is quite clearly designed to ensure that it does not apply to the Labor Club—the main donor to the Labor Party in the ACT. Those donations come principally from gaming revenue and here we have the associated entity of the Labor Party being exempted from submitting a return on the basis that it is licensed under the Gaming Machine Act and the Liquor Act.
If you delete that, the rest of the proposed subsection is fine. There can be no possible allegation that by exempting an associated entity—such as the Labor Club—it would get any unfair advantage. As it is, it lays itself open to allegations that the Labor Party is going to get an unfair advantage because its principal source of revenue is exempted specifically by proposed subsection 232 (4). That is the purpose of my amendment. If you delete proposed subsection 232 (4) you get over that perceived or real bias in favour of the Labor Party because of the very nature of its main source of income in terms of donations. I commend my amendment.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (11.52): The government will not be supporting this amendment. Mr Stefaniak’s amendment fundamentally misunderstands how the government’s amendment operates. The government’s amendment is designed to achieve two things: first of all, to ensure that any donation of any scale, whether it be $2 or $2,000 or $200,000, must be declared if it is coming from an associated entity to a political party or candidate. That is a significant change, but it is designed to capture any donations from associated entities.
The second intent of the government’s amendment is to recognise that associated entities receive payments for purposes other than to donate to a political party or candidate. For example—and Mr Stefaniak uses the example of the Labor Club—the Labor Club receives payments from patrons for meals, food, alcohol and for the use of gaming machines. Those payments are not payments to a political party; they are payments to the Labor Club. If the profits from those activities are subsequently donated to a political party, they will be captured by the government’s amendments and they will be required to be reported. So if the Labor Club, to use that example—but it applies to other associated entities as well—uses the money that it raises from those activities, such as gaming or food or alcohol, and donates it to a political party it will be required to report it. Indeed, even if it only donates one cent it will be required to report it.
The intent of Mr Stefaniak’s amendment and the effect of Mr Stefaniak’s amendment would mean that every time a patron buys a middy at the Canberra Labor Club it must be disclosed. That is the effect of Mr Stefaniak’s amendment. It is completely impractical and I think it shows that he does not understand how this provision works. As I have said, this provision is designed to ensure that any donation and any level of gift provided by an associated entity to a political party or candidate must be disclosed—of any level.
Any donation of any sort, any gift of any sort, must be disclosed. But it is unrealistic that entities that also conduct trading activities, whether they are a licensed club or
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