ABC Drive Interview on Electoral Reform (19 Mar 2024)

Now, turning to Canberra, where a group of independents are pushing for more transparency in political donations. Independents, including Kate Chaney, the Greens, David Pocock, Lidia Thorpe, and the Jacqui Lambie Network, will introduce the Fair and Transparent Elections Bills in both houses of Parliament. The bill encompasses a number of reforms, from truth in political advertising rules to a ban on donations from socially harmful industries and restricting the definition of gifts. Notably, it excludes a recommendation to cap spending on elections. Kate Chaney is the independent member for Curtin. "Kate, welcome back to Drive." "Thanks very much, Jo."

"You're working together with the crossbench to introduce this bill, which contains a suite of reforms. Let's run through them, starting with a ban on donations from socially harmful industries." "Yes, that's right. We've got a real problem if companies that are doing harm to our communities are able to make political donations and potentially influence policy. For example, I think it's a problem that the communications minister took $19,000 of donations from Sportsbet before the election and is now in charge of regulating gambling companies. That's why this bill contains a ban on tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and fossil fuel companies. So, that's where it ends, because what you consider socially harmful, others might not."

"Well, that's right. And community attitudes will change over time on that. I think there are some that everyone can agree on. We think we've started with a pretty reasonable list. And no doubt, as attitudes change, that can be amended. You also want to ban donations from current or potential government contractors. How on earth would that work?" "Well, a lot of other OECD countries do this, and the problem that we have is that consultants, for example, like the big four, have these very cozy relationships with government where they make huge political donations and then they get a lot of work, which may be a coincidence, but it just doesn't send the right signal. We want to make sure that decisions on government contracts are made entirely based on merit, and that there's no perception that they're influenced by political donations."

"Let's turn to gifts. You want to tighten the definition of what a gift is?" "That's right. At the moment, things like fundraising dinners, memberships to a business roundtable that might cost $35,000, or a $14,000 dinner are not considered donations or gifts. Any common-sense approach can see that this is, in fact, cash for access and should be seen as such. So, tightening definitions is a really important step in making sure that we have genuine transparency. And people can see who is funding their political candidates before they cast their votes." I'm speaking to the independent member for Curtin, Kate Chaney, who, along with a number of other independents and the Greens and the Jacqui Lambie Network, are going to introduce the Fair and Transparent Election Bill in both houses of Parliament. "Kate, now Labour's promised to lower the donation disclosure threshold to $1,000, which I think you agree with, but you want real-time disclosures."

"Yes. And the government has indicated that it would be supportive of pretty much real-time disclosures, but we haven't seen any legislation to actually do this. Now, we're likely to have another election in about a year. And the clock is ticking. Time is running out. So, it's one thing to say it is our policy to have real-time disclosures. It's another thing to actually introduce the legislation so that it becomes law. And the reason I and the rest of the crossbenchers are supporting these bills is to make it really clear to the government that you can do a whole lot of electoral reform with the support of the crossbench and get it through both houses now in time for the next election. We don't need to delay. We can actually get this done now. What appetite is there? What has the government said to you?"

"Well, the government has indicated that it does intend to do some electoral reform. The thing that we're concerned about is that it seems to be doing a deal with the coalition on an electoral reform package. And it may be that both the government and the coalition are highly incentivized to use that electoral reform opportunity to lock in the two-party system and prevent future political competition. So, we want to make it really clear that it's possible to do this broad package of reform now. And if the government turns around and says, we have to give you a watered-down version because we need bipartisan support, that is a choice the government's making to work with the coalition at the expense of some reforms that I think have broad community support, because the government does want to ban big donations. How much is too much when it comes to donations? What do you think the cap should be?"

"Well, it's really hard to come up with a cap model that gets the big money out but also makes sure that we can have some political competition. And this bill actually includes a major donor cap model that I think finds that balance. So, it says that no individual or company can donate more than 2% of the total amount of public funding from the last election. And now that we've picked that number because less than that, you don't really think that someone can sway the outcome of an election. But we don't want to see the Clive Palmer model, where people are spending $100 million on an election, attempting to influence the outcome of our democratic processes. So, if that was in place at the last election, it would only have affected four donors, but it would have more than halved the amount of private money that was going into our political system. And that's a good indication of the potential skewing impact of these really big donations. Because you were part of the Climate 200 campaign, we saw the founders of Atlassian, Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, I think they donated more than $2.5 million to Climate 200. What did that do to the bottom line of you and the other independents?"

"Well, under this model, and so there were individuals who donated large sums to Climate 200, and I received some money from Climate 200. Now, Climate 200 did receive money from 11,200 people. But some of those were big donors. And in fact, the donation from Scott Farquhar, one of those Atlassian people, would actually be caught by this model if it was in place. So, it would stop individuals from donating more than it works out to be about $1.5 million based on the current public funding levels. And I think no one wants to see individuals having that huge, disproportionate impact, no matter where they come from or which political persuasion they are. Kate, thanks for your time." "Thanks very much, Jo."

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