Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill 2024
Senator FARRELL (South Australia—Minister for Trade and Tourism, Special Minister of State and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) (21:15): Senator Lambie, for weeks and weeks my office reached out to your office to give you a briefing on this legislation. You have chosen not to take that briefing. In fairness to the Greens, when the offer was made, they readily accepted, and we gave them— Senator Lambie: Do you understand— The TEMPORARY CHAIR ( Senator Grogan ): Senator Lambie, I'm going to ask you again to wait for the call.
Senator Lambie, please go ahead. You have a point of order? Senator Lambie: I'm simply asking, these amendments—we're not talking about the bill; we're talking about— The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Senator Lambie, this is not a point of order.
Senator Lambie: Okay. The amendments— The TEMPORARY CHAIR: The minister was speaking. Senator Lambie: The relevance.
The TEMPORARY CHAIR: He has eight minutes and 40 seconds left on the clock—if you would like to resume your seat. Minister, would you like to continue with your answer. Senator FARRELL: I make the observation, as I have done, that Senator Lambie was given the opportunity of a full briefing on the bill.
She chose not to take advantage of that. If she wishes to have an explanation of the proposed amendments, then I'm happy to go through those. Amendment (1) proposed originally a disclosure threshold of $1,000, and we have increased that to $5,000.
This is currently $16,900 and was again set to increase for the new financial year. No. 2, the amended gift cap from an individual or entity was originally $20,000 in the bill. That has been increased to $50,000.
No. 3 is a provision to allow genuine peak representation bodies to manage their affiliation under the cap of four times the proposed gift. No. 4 is a technical amendment to limit the risks associated with constitutional changes to the reform package. No. 5 is a clarification that administrative expenditure is not electoral expenditure.
Amendment (6) is technical amendments to ensure that state and territory electoral laws do not apply to the receipt and the use of funds for federal purposes or federal administrative purposes. No. 7 is technical amendments to ensure candidates, MPs and senators are able to contribute to their own political party or individual campaign account up to the annual gift cap.
No. 8 is technical amendments to ensure political parties are able to loan funds between their branches without being subject to the gift cap. No. 9 is technical amendments to clarify that volunteers are to be treated as staff for the purposes of travel and accommodation related expenses and exemptions. While I'm on my feet, Chair, Senator Hume did ask a question earlier.
The answer to that is that a peak body can only be representative of other organisations. The only time a natural person can be a member of such a body is when they are a life member or elected official, not a replacement for affiliates or genuine organisations. This bill, including its amendments, is about promoting participation while limiting big money, as it restricts big donors.