Page 2754 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 June 2012
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The government also has concerns about proposed section 221C. It would appear that it is intended to apply to accumulated payments over $49,500 that are approaching the $50,000 threshold, which is a very narrow window of opportunity. The intention is again hard to deduce because, as we know, there is no explanatory statement for this bill. And, again, the bill is at odds with what has already been debated and agreed to by this Assembly in May.
In conclusion, the government continues to oppose this bill. It is unnecessary, it is hastily drafted, it is contrary to the outcomes of two Assembly inquiries and it is contrary to legislation adopted by this place in May on campaign finance matters. It has not been refined or reviewed in the light of recent amendments to the Electoral Act. It flies in the face of significant human rights considerations, it has no explanatory statement and it makes no attempt to engage with and discuss the impact of the proposed law on human rights in the territory. The bill is, quite simply, an abuse of the parliamentary process. It is a misuse of the time of this Assembly, it is an embarrassment and it should not be supported.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (4.40): This bill was for all intents and purposes dealt with during the debate on the Electoral Amendment Bill during the last sitting. Mrs Dunne’s amendments to that bill were designed to achieve the same outcome as is being proposed in the bill today. The Greens did not support those amendments, nor will we support the bill today.
Let me be very clear. We did support the bill in principle, because we could not vote against the principle that there should be a limit on donations. As everyone knows, this is an issue that the Greens have very longstanding and strongly held views on. Limiting political donations is good for democracy. During that debate we also recognised that we did not want a situation where the committee inquiry and potential reforms were frustrated during the process.
I was very clear at that time that the Greens’ view was that there would need to be amendments to the bill before it could be passed. Effectively those changes were made during the passage of the Electoral Amendment Bill, which is a far better scheme than what is proposed in this bill.
I am somewhat surprised that the Liberals want to debate this bill today. But I think the fact that they want us to pass a bill that is completely incompatible with the rest of the act and would leave us in a farcical position of having a scheme that is completely inconsistent and totally unenforceable speaks volumes about the Liberals’ motivations and genuineness on this issue.
I did not even bother to draft amendments to try and make it work. Apart from the fact that the bill is totally inconsistent with the rest of the scheme and that it would be an embarrassment for this Assembly if it did ever end up before a court, the proposal is totally unenforceable. I have spoken about this before, but the reality is that we are limited in our ability to regulate electoral activity and we have to be very careful to delineate between commonwealth and ACT electoral activity.
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