Page 2144 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
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MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for the Arts, Creative Industries and Cultural Events, Minister for Building Quality Improvement, Minister for Business and Regulatory Services and Minister for Seniors and Veterans) (6.10): Ms Le Couteur is correct. This is not being supported. It is important that electoral funding is known as the means by which political parties can ensure compliance within what is rightly a significant regulatory burden: increasing transparency in electoral funding. With each MLA come additional compliance activities, and those costs are simply not scalable. We believe that it is important to be able to support political parties so that they can be transparent. On that basis, we will be opposing this amendment.
Amendment negatived.
Proposed new clause 8B negatived.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (6.11): I move amendment No 5 circulated in my name [see schedule 5 at page 2166]. This is simply around creating a defined period where gifts over $1,000 must be reported within seven days. Outside that, they are reported monthly.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (6.12): The Canberra Liberals will be supporting the Greens’ amendment. While we agree with the principle of real-time reporting, we have several practical concerns with reporting requirements as laid out in the bill and the government’s amendments. For example, if a person who assists a political entity with their finances is on leave or unexpectedly unavailable, there is a risk that the entity could be in breach of legislation.
The government have recognised the impractical nature of the bill with their amendment that changes the reporting requirements during the December and January period, when many people take leave. However, the same issues arise if someone falls ill or takes leave outside that period. The Greens’ amendment, surprisingly, is a more practical alternative.
MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for the Arts, Creative Industries and Cultural Events, Minister for Building Quality Improvement, Minister for Business and Regulatory Services and Minister for Seniors and Veterans) (6.13): ACT Labor will not be supporting this amendment. We took a clear position to the last election that we wanted to promote real-time reporting of political donations. We believe that Canberrans deserve to know as soon as possible, and not a month after the fact, who makes large donations to political parties in the ACT.
Real-time reporting is a key transparency measure. Therefore, we will not be supporting a measure that waters down that intention. We will not be supporting the amendment. We believe that political parties, as we have already discussed in this
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