Page 655 - Week 02 - Thursday, 19 February 2015
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Clauses 25 to 28, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 29.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (5.41): I will be opposing this clause, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Clause 29 agreed to.
Clauses 30 and 31, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 32.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (5.42): I move amendment No 15 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 666].
This amendment relates to the timing of the declaration of donations. The amendment proposes to change the position so that in the last week of the election there is a 24-hour notification period. This is to maximise the transparency that is available to voters in the run-up to an election day. We believe that this is simply an enhancement in transparency and we believe that it is a practical way to ensure that voters have the maximum information, should they choose to access it.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Capital Metro) (5.42): The government opposes this amendment. The ACT’s laws concerning disclosure of donations are already some of the best in the country. As a panel of election reform experts noted last year, the ACT is already the only jurisdiction that provides for real-time disclosure of political donations over the $1,000 threshold in addition to annual and post-election reporting.
The amendment proposed by Mr Rattenbury to provide for disclosure within 24 hours of receipt of a gift is simply not practical from a technological perspective. You already have real-time disclosure, but the 24-hours requirement is simply impractical and cannot be supported.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (5.43): I would like to highlight that this is potentially a false sense of security Mr Rattenbury is putting forward here. Whilst the opposition and I am sure the government firmly believes in disclosure, and that is why we have got these more onerous requirements, the fact is, even if you have a 24-hour disclosure period in the week leading up to the election, what is stopping someone from making a donation on the Friday and banking it on the Monday, making a donation on the Saturday and banking it on the Monday or on Sunday and banking it on the Monday?
I think we have to be very careful that we do not have a perception of transparency, when, in actual fact, there are always going to be threshold issues and date issues. Therefore, Mr Rattenbury’s proposal should not be seen as being a silver bullet for transparency. There are always going to be issues. The best we can do is try and manage them in a way that is actually practical.
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