Government moves on electoral donation reform, including truth in political advertising - ABC Radio Interview (14 Mar 2024)
Transcript: Should the claims made by politicians as their parties and advocacy groups during election campaigns be subjected to truth in advertising laws? Right now, South Australia is the only jurisdiction with such laws in place. There are reports this morning that under a proposal being considered by the government, the Australian Electoral Commission will be given the power to rule on the truthfulness of election advertisements. Kate Chaney is an independent MP who was on the committee that recommended a raft of electoral reforms, and she joins us this morning. Welcome. Thanks, Patricia. The Nine papers have reported the government wants to legislate truth in advertising laws based on the South Australian model. Take us through how that model works
Well, it's obviously very difficult to legislate truth because it comes down to who is the person who determines truth. So it will have to take a pretty conservative approach. But this has been in place in South Australia for a couple of decades and the sky hasn't fallen in. So the way it works is that, um, that a political in political advertising, you cannot make a statement that can be shown to be false and the Australian Electoral Commission, the South Australian Electoral Commission, plays a role there in determining what, can be factually proven to be false Now, that won't affect future promises and many people would say that it should go further. But it does at least make politicians think twice if they are just telling bald faced lies as part of their political advertising.
The Coalition is concerned and that making the AEC the arbiter of truth will be problematic. Do you see that?
Well, I think it's always going to be difficult to work out who should play that role. There's a lot of faith in the Australian Electoral Commission, and it would have to exercise its powers in a conservative way but the alternative is more difficult. So, you know, is accepting that people can just tell lies in political advertising, I think is worse for us as a community than making some attempt to actually determine truth and falsehood. And our court systems do it all. The time. This is not a new thing determining matters of fact. And there are a few alternative models about who should play that role, but the AEC seems like a pretty sensible place to start.
The Nine papers have said that the government's proposal will feature a unit in the Electoral Commission that would adjudicate on election ads. I mean, you'd really need to do some incredible boosting of the AEC, wouldn't you, to give them the resources to deal with that?
It does absolutely need to be resourced properly because it will have to be able to act quickly, and, get to the heart of factual matters in a timely way. So that will require, you know, different skill sets, different experience and, additional resources. But what we're seeing all over the world is this disregard for the truth and political advertising, which can oftem be very effective in, turning elections. And we've seen examples in Australia from both major parties. And I'd like to add where people have been told outright lies that has potentially influenced how people vote.
You backed a private member's bill from Zali Steggall, which was also based on the South Australian model. Do you know if that's the sort of model the government is considering? How much are they consulting you?
Well, so Zali Steggall has introduced a few pieces of legislation on this issue. I also included a model that was based on the South Australian model in my Restoring Trust Bill that looked at other issues around reducing financial influence, improving transparency and levelling the playing field. I've made it very clear to the government what I would like to see in this electoral reform package. And I know a number of other crossbenchers have as well. The government is holding its cards very close to its chest in terms of which of those reforms it actually intends to go forward with. Our concerns are that it uses the excuse that it needs to do a deal with the Liberal Party as a reason to water down the reforms when there is a majority in both houses that would like to see some strong regulation in relation to transparency and protecting voters from lies, as well as reducing financial influence and levelling the playing field. So if the government is going to do less than those things because it says it needs to do a deal with the Liberal Party then I think communities rightly are able to say, well, you could have actually dealt with these things by working with the crossbench.
That's an interesting point you make. But one of the counters to that, and I've heard this being push, is that you really need bipartisan support to, create laws like this that are trusted by the mainstream political parties. What's your response to that?
Well, it's a very convenient excuse for the major parties to only pass legislation that favours them. And we don't let Coles and Woollies make the laws about supermarket competition but we do let the major parties make the laws about political competition. So we end up seeing an electoral framework that does a lot of things that embed the status quo and the two party system and make it very difficult for new competitors to get up. So I think by all means, it would be great to have multi-partisan support so that we have a stable, you know, um, framework going forward. But it cannot be used to only pass changes that embed the major parties.
Another area the government is looking for, of course, is donation reform. The government wants to ban big donations. How much is too much when it comes to donations?
Well, it's a really good question. I mean, I think everyone recognises that it's not good if someone can spend tens of millions of dollars and influence an election outcome in Australia. No individual should have the ability to sway an election result. The challenge is it's also really hard as a new challenger to get up and running and you know, I tried to come up with a cap model that, made sense because I can see that people don't want to see. So much money is being spent in politics, but it's very hard to come up with something that doesn't just embed the status quo, given that there are so many incumbency advantages and party advantages. So that I think is the challenge that the government has is stop individuals from having an impact on the outcome of elections but also allow political competition. New challenges allow our democracy to keep evolving so that we don't end up with the same two stale perspectives and no other choices.
You were part, of course, of the Climate 200 campaign. Atlassian founders collectively donated more than $2.5 million to that particular campaign. And of course, then that campaign contributed to different teal candidates including yourself. What did that do to the bottom line of independents like you?
What do you mean? What did it do to the bottom line?
How did it help you?
Yeah. Well, I mean, I've never met anyone from Atlassian and, um, never had any contact with them. So from my perspective, the support I got from climate 200 was 11,200 donors, who all saw that having more independents in Parliament was the only way we were going to see real change. On issues like integrity and climate. Now maybe $2.5 million is too much. And that's something that should be addressed in regulation. But we've got to be really careful that we don't prevent new people from actually getting up because it's really expensive. And we started out with, you know, with nothing And we had to get an office and a team and IT systems and, spend a lot of money on advertising just so that people actually knew that they had a choice. So you have to get the name out there. You also need to communicate what it is that you stand for so that people are aware that they don't only have to choose between Liberal and Labor. And that's the the real challenge and I definitely appreciated the support that I had from 500 people in my community, plus the 11,200 supporters of Climate 200 that we have to make sure we're not actually making that impossible.
Just finally today, the treasurer will give a speech and kind of set up the economic parameters as he goes into the budget period and caution ministers with big spending agendas that he plans to save most of any extra revenue that flows into the government coffers. Do you think that's the right approach?
Well, it's not binary. You know, I think, of course, we have to be careful with, spending when inflation is still a live issue in Australia, we have to be careful that we're not spending money on the wrong things. At the same time, that cost of living pressure is real. And so we do I think, need to find targeted ways to make sure that we have the things that we think we need while not placing additional upwards pressure on inflation. So it's a very delicate balancing act. And I'll be having a good hard look at any decisions about additional spending to make sure that, I agree that they are necessary in this context.
Kate Chaney, thanks for joining us.
Thanks very much, Patricia.
