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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-10-31 Daily Xml
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ELECTORAL FUNDING REFORM

The Hon. M. PARNELL (16:15): I move:

That this council—

1. Notes—

(a) that the October 2012 South Australian ALP Convention has passed a motion calling on the state government to pursue electoral funding reform by severely restricting private, corporate and union donations to all political parties and increase the level of public electoral funding;

(b) the motion acknowledged the need for support for electoral funding reform to come from all sides of politics; and

(c) the opposition leader Isobel Redmond is also on public record backing the adoption of the 'Canadian model' of regulating political donations, including limiting individual donations to parties or candidates and prohibiting all corporate, union and organisation donations to political parties and candidates; and

2. Calls on the state government to introduce legislation for electoral funding reform during this term of parliament so that new rules can be placed for the 2014 state election.

The South Australian Labor Party changed its position on political donations at its recent state convention, on 27 October, voting unanimously, as I understand it, to ban or to severely restrict private donations, especially those from unions and corporations, to candidates and political parties. I will begin by commending the Labor Party for this development, and I offer my congratulations to the union officials who drove the motion through the convention.

The Greens have long been arguing for a new model for funding electoral campaigns such as this. It is an issue that I have raised on a number of occasions since joining this parliament. For example, I called for bans on corporate donations back in 2007 in light of the then forestry minister receiving campaign donations from companies in the forestry industry. In 2008, I introduced a private member's bill to force all applicants for large property developments to publicly disclose their donations to political parties at the time they lodge their development application, and that was after the Rann government refused to consider changing the way in which political donations by property developers were handled.

Whether or not it is the Walker Corporation, Buckland Park or developers at Mount Barker, or any of the government's other financial backers in the property development industry, this issue of property developers making donations to political parties is where the current electoral funding system is brought into the greatest amount of disrepute or even disgrace. That is why, of course, the previous New South Wales government banned it, following a number of corruption scandals. Of course, it was too late to save the New South Wales government, but the lesson is still there for our government and for our parliament to learn.

I also introduced bills to parliament designed to end some of the dodgy practices of the Labor Party's fundraising arm, SA Progressive Business. In August 2009, the Greens launched the Democracy for Sale website to shine a light on fundraising practices. In July this year, I introduced a bill, the Constitution (Access to Ministers) Amendment Bill 2012, to ban the use of ministers as bait for party political fundraisers, and that bill will be voted on in two weeks' time.

The motion before us refers to the so-called Canadian model of electoral funding, and that is a model the Greens have long supported. Under that model, only individual citizens or permanent residents are allowed to make political donations. Corporations are not allowed to make donations; neither are trade unions. Donations are limited to around the $1,000 mark, although that is indexed to inflation. Also, spending limits apply to political parties and candidates in the conduct of election campaigns.

Under the Canadian model, public funding and broadcasting time on television and radio is provided by state, and it is divided up between parties, based on their level of support in previous elections and, importantly, there are limits on electoral spending by third parties who are not running in an election but who wish to advertise in support or against a candidate or party, the sort of restrictions, I guess, that we have not seen in the United States presidential election, where the super PACs have become the dominant force in political advertising.

The motion also refers to the support of the Leader of the Opposition, and I do need to put on the record why that is an appropriate part of this motion. In 2009, the Leader of the Opposition, Isobel Redmond, said that the Liberal Party would go to the 2010 state election with a policy that included limiting individual donations to parties or candidates to a maximum of $1,000, prohibiting all corporate, union and organisation donations to political parties and candidates and banning cash donations. In August 2009, Ms Redmond said the following on 891 to the breakfast audience:

What we want to do is to move basically to the Canadian system, which basically says that you can make only personal donations—no corporate donations at all. The Canadian system has a limit of $1,100 a year. We're looking at maybe about $1,000, although that might be negotiable up to the current, I think, $1,500 before it becomes declarable. But basically a very severe cap on personal donations and no corporate donations whatsoever, and the receipting of everything in terms of cash—no passing through third parties and all those sorts of things.

That is the quote from the media monitoring service that all members have access to. In November 2009, Ms Redmond also was quoted as telling The Advertiser:

There is growing concern in South Australia that favourable decisions about things such as development approvals or contracts or appointments can be bought, and that one of the ways to do this is via donations made to political parties.

The Greens welcome this support for an alternative model of election funding from the alternative premier. I would just briefly like to run through the situation as it applies elsewhere in Australia. In fact, all other states and territories, except for Tasmania and the Northern Territory, have a budget for funding parties and candidates that receive more than 4 per cent of the primary vote in an election. In other words, they have public funding of their election campaigns.

New South Wales and Queensland reimburse electoral expenditure on a sliding scale, Victoria, WA and the ACT have an indexed amount, and New South Wales also provides policy development support and administrative support that can be up to $2 million per party. In further reforms in New South Wales, now only individuals on the New South Wales' electoral roll can make political donations, and a number of jurisdictions—New South Wales, Queensland, WA, the ACT and the Northern Territory—all have strict rules on disclosing donations to political parties.

That leaves South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania in the shade, and I would say that South Australia has the least transparent system of all for political donations. The laws in our state are well behind best practice and even well behind changes that have been made in other states. Nationally, we stand out for the laxity of our rules on election donations, and this is a chance, I believe, with the opposition supporting the move, for the South Australian Labor government to be proactive.

The membership of the Labor Party through its convention recently has spoken. As I have said, you have the opposition on side, you have the Greens on side and I have no doubt that, when this matter does come up eventually for a vote, we will find that other members of the crossbench are on side as well. The Greens believe that postponing a decision on this important reform is leaving our state open to corruption. I would therefore call on all members to support this motion which asks the government to get on with reform.

The planets are aligned. We have all the key players on board, including the rank and file of the ALP, and I think that now is the time to do it. If we were to legislate promptly, we could have the new rules in place by the 2014 state election and our democracy in this state would be the better for it. I commend the motion to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.J. Stephens.

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