Electoral (Funding, Expenditure and Disclosure) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 16 November 2021.)

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (16:54): I rise to speak on this bill. If my arithmetic is right, this is the fourth electoral bill that has come before this place this year. The major difference between the others and this bill is that most of the other bills altered how elections work, whereas this alters how campaign finances work. Large parts of this bill impact the rules around the capped expenditure period.

We have robust and I think, in terms of how systems work in other states, good campaign finance laws in South Australia, first implemented in 2013 but not to come into operation until after the 2014 election. This system was updated in 2016, well before it had been used in its first election, so there was effectively a bit over a four-year lead-in period before the system became fully operational at the start of the first capped expenditure period on 1 July 2017, and a one-year lead-in period for the changes made in 2016. This is not something that has occurred in this case.

There are some ways that the slight changes to how the campaign finance, reporting and disclosure obligations work in this bill. However, there is some concern with how some of the changes will operate. There was effectively a four-year lead-in period before this system came in. We are being asked to make changes well into the capped expenditure period now, which started on 1 July this year. We are now at the end of November. We are literally changing the rules halfway through the capped expenditure period.

To be quite frank, there are a number of items, one in particular that I will mention in a moment that we are not entirely sure how it will work, that are being proposed in this bill. We will oppose this bill at the second reading. We think there are far too many unanswered questions in this bill, particularly questions about how it will work and particularly in relation to reimbursement of special assistance funding.

I know that concerns have been raised from those who administer the campaign funding in relation to special assistance funding, prescribing what can be claimed and how it will actually work. For example, it has been raised with me that a small party that might have only one administrative person may need to track whether a phone call from an MP is a compliance call, or whether they just want to know what a bank balance is, but then is an inquiry into the current standing of the account potentially compliance or perhaps to ensure that all the amounts have been properly recorded?

If a member of the public calls and asks about making a donation, is this for compliance purposes? What if they then ask whether a donation of $200 or more needs to be recorded—is this particular part of the conversation a compliance call? How do they record this time and calculate the percentage that has been spent on compliance matters? Who makes a decision as to what constitutes compliance work and how it will be checked/enforced?

For these reasons, there is a lot of difficulty. These concerns were raised months and months ago with the Attorney-General and her office and we do not have answers to them yet. To change the campaign finance rules so deep into the capped expenditure period, with so many unanswered questions, we oppose the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. H.M. Girolamo.