Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Banning Dirty Donations) Bill 2026

Senator CANAVAN (Queensland—Leader of the Nationals) (09:18): I've often remarked that the hypocrisy that comes from down that corner of the chamber is almost in infinite supply. It's such a shame we couldn't capture the Greens' hypocrisy, or have some technology to capture it and convert it into electricity, because we would never have a blackout again. There is an infinite supply of hypocrisy that comes from down that end of the chamber, exceeded only by their moral superiority.

They are our betters, of course. They are the moral guardians of the universe, according to them—just ask them—and everybody else is terrible. Everybody else is corrupt.

Everybody else is in hock to some dark-money friends. I'll get to the receipts. Senator Hodgins-May: Looking forward to it.

Senator CANAVAN: There are plenty of those. In truth, there is no moral high ground that the Greens sit on. It's quite the reverse with these kinds of debates.

I'm actually surprised that the Greens come in here and raise these issues when there is no party in this place—there is no movement in this country right now—that has become more influenced by corporate donations and is following more the nose of big business than the Greens political movement. The Greens political movement did begin as a genuine attempt to improve the environment in this country—to stop certain projects that they viewed as environmentally damaging.

I've often disagreed with the Greens, but I take the point. I respect the fact that their founders, the origins of their party, came from a genuine place of wanting to protect the environment. Today the Greens political movement is just a shadow of those pioneers, because they simply follow the big green money, the green cash, that comes from the solar and wind industry that is destroying the very environment that the Greens purport to protect.

I see it all over this great country of ours and all over my area of the country in Central Queensland where mountain tops are being literally blasted off—areas of pristine environment that have become the biodiverse areas of koala habitats and sugar gliders. These areas are just being blown to smithereens, all in the interests of the corporate green industry that the Greens support and just follow the nose of.

These are all largely foreign investors, all big businesses. This is big business. Small businesses don't have enough nitroglycerine to blow up 20 metres of a mountain top.

It's big deals, right? Senator Whish-Wilson: You're talking about coalmines. Senator CANAVAN: Well, I don't want a coalmine there either—through you, Mr Deputy President.

I don't support a coalmine in these areas. I don't support coalmining on prime agricultural land. I don't support coal seam gas in these areas.

But you guys do. You support large industrial activity that destroys our natural environment. And they're doing it just to—guess what?—make money.

That's why they're doing it. These guys aren't protecting the environment. They want to make money by destroying our environment.

Good people who used to be in your movement, like Steve Nowakowski, who stood for election twice for your party in North Queensland—he is aghast at it. I disagree with Steve on lots of things, but we do share a view of wanting to protect our beautiful and pristine natural environment. But the Greens have sold out to these interests.

You can tell that because this bill doesn't tackle those donations. They come in here with this moral pomposity and want to ban all these corporate donations. But guess what?

They don't want to ban the corporate donations that go to the Greens. This is a massive industry. There is no industry that gets more welfare, more money, from this place than the renewable energy industries—the biggest protection racket in this country now.

The budget that the Labor Party delivered this week gives another $18 billion to its failing net zero agenda. Senator Hodgins-May: How much in fossil fuel subsidies? How much in fuel tax credits?

Senator CANAVAN: Through you, Mr Deputy President. The fossil fuel industry, as you like to call it, or the resources sector, as the stats say, is the least supported industry in this country. Go and look at the Productivity Commission figures.

The Productivity Commission does a report on this every year, and the mining industry in this country receives less support than any other industry in this country. It basically receives R&D assistance in those stats. That's about it—because, unlike the renewable energy industry, the mining industry pays tax; it pays bills.

It employs thousands of people. It creates money for our country in terms of trade. We know it does because these guys want to tax it.

They want to shut it down, but they also want to tax it. I don't know how that works long term. But the renewable energy industry in this country has become addicted to surviving on taxpayer subsidies, not on creating wealth.

While doing so, it is destroying large parts of our environment. Let's just have a look. The Greens are completely closed to this issue, but some work done by the Page Research Centre last year has found $170 million to a variety of environmental groups—all on the public record.

The facts are there. It's all on the public record. Honourable senators interjecting— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order!

Senator CANAVAN: $170 million. Senator Watt: Who funds that research? Senator CANAVAN: The facts are there.

This is all on the public record. These are all publicly disclosed financial reports. Senator Whish-Wilson: More disinformation—peer reviewed research?

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Canavan, resume your seat. Senator CANAVAN: $170 million. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Canavan, resume your seat!

Senator Hodgins-May and the minister were heard in silence. Senator Canavan, you have the call. Senator CANAVAN: Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the rowdy interruptions because they don't like transparency.

They don't like this. They don't like the idea that in the 2023-24 financial year—these are all disclosures to the charities regulator—$170 million went to these green groups pushing this environmentally destructive renewable energy agenda. Some of those groups are getting funding from the CFMEU.

I think the Greens still take money from the CFMEU. So how dare you come into this place and lecture the rest of us about how terrible these donations are, when you take donations from a discredited organisation that has been implicated in some of the worst corruption in this country for decades? Where do you get off?

Even the Labor Party has decided not to take donations from the CFMEU. They won't give back the money that they took, but they have at least stopped current donations from the CFMEU. So where do you guys get off?

Where do you get off when even the Labor Party—which I wouldn't necessarily hold up as a bastion of moral probity when it comes to trade union funding—have had to turn their noses up at the CFMEU? But you guys keep taking money from them, and you come in here and want to lecture us about donation reform! Why doesn't your bill ban CFMEU donations?

If you really wanted to ban dirty donations—that's what the name of this bill is, 'banning dirty donations'—where is the CFMEU? You've all shut up now, haven't you? You've got no response to that.

Where are your interjections now? You take money from the corrupt CFMEU, and you have the temerity to come in here and lecture us. Give me a break!

Give me a total break. What's worse about the donations to these green groups that just want to make more money off the backs of Australian taxpayers is that a big chunk of them come from foreign sources. This is harder.

It is much harder to find. The $170 million is available through the charities regulator. Unfortunately, there is a lot less transparency on foreign donations.

You often have to go through annual reports overseas, and different countries have different disclosure requirements. But, over the last decade, at least $100 million has come from foreign groups. They often call themselves philanthropic groups, but they have a real agenda.

They have an agenda to pursue this industrial solar and wind power. Often communities are trying to fight against this, to protect their own land and their own environment, and they're facing this massive tsunami of political donations from foreign sources that we should just really not allow in this country. We've tried to introduce foreign transparency requirements, but it's very difficult.

It's obviously still happening. Again, with this bill, if the Greens were serious about so-called dirty donations, why are they happy to continue to allow so much foreign money to come in and influence our political system, our country, often against the interests of local people who just want to protect their local environment? But the Greens are happy to sign up and stand next to the sorts of groups doing this.

These donations from foreign countries should be examined with much greater scrutiny. We have seen concern in other countries—there has been concern expressed by the European Union—that money flows from countries like Russia, who clearly have an interest in seeing Europe close down its gas industry, which it naively and stupidly has done, or largely done. They've become more dependent on Russia because of that.

There probably has been some influence from the Russian government on European politics. We need to stand against that; that's what we should be standing against. What is very clear this year, or has become very clear this year, is that we need to become more self-sufficient as a country—more independent.

The Greens' political priorities here, which seek to shut down the use of our resources, would make Australia more dependent on other countries and less able to respond to crises, as we've seen in the last few months. Denigrating the resources industry that underpins our security, wealth, prosperity and national security would weaken our country. We shouldn't seek to denigrate particular industries.

I am not proposing that we should ban donations from renewable energy companies. I think any business that legally participates in this country deserves to be able to participate in the political process, unless they're conducting illegal activities. We haven't even banned donations from the CFMEU, but maybe that should be considered.

But, if you are legally participating in this country, you should be able to participate in the political process. The laws we pass do affect your business, your industry, and they deserve a voice, just like any other Australian. What is most unfortunate about this debate is the constant questioning of each other's motives, particularly from a platform where no-one has clean hands.

You take donations. We do. We all do.

I'm upfront about it. You guys never are. Senator Whish-Wilson: There's a little bit of a difference, mate!

Senator CANAVAN: You throw the mud without saying, 'We do too.' How about we just debate the issues? How about we just do that? All the donations are public.

All the donations are fine. All the donations are publicly listed. Why don't we just debate the issues, instead of questioning each other's motives constantly?

The reason the Greens movement has often had to increasingly resort to this kind of rhetoric is it's actually losing the debate on the issues. Your vote is declining. Your support is going down because people are no longer buying the rubbish that has clearly been shown to be wrong.

You made a lot of promises: that clean energy would lower power prices and bring manufacturing to this country, that we'd have a critical minerals industry, that we'd have hydrogen and that we'd clean up our environment. None of those things have come true, and that's why people are walking away from this agenda. Instead of trying to debate those issues and reflect on what you might have got wrong, you instead are lashing out now and saying, 'It's not because we have got things wrong; it's because other people are corrupt or are involved with certain businesses or industries in this country.' You can see you're losing the debate, guys, because even the government has flown up the white flag on this.

This week, in the budget, the Treasurer mentioned the words 'net zero' just once, and it was a lame, fleeting reference in relation to the world going to net zero. It's not, but, anyway, he said it. The Minister for Finance is saying, 'We're not going to spend much money on net zero anymore; we're going to slow it down,' but the fine print says otherwise.

The government is clearly walking away from this agenda as fast as it can because the Australian people know it's failed. It has failed as an idea. It has failed around the world.

The pursuit of net zero has only made our country weaker and more dependent on other countries. It has hollowed out our manufacturing industries, pushed our energy prices to record levels, crushed the living standards of the Australian people and forced real wages back 15 years. They're back to 2011 levels under these policies.

They have failed on every level. Most of all, they have also failed to protect our natural environment. Our bushland is being destroyed by large-scale solar and wind projects.

Our farmlands are being bought up by overseas interests trying to produce carbon credits. There's a beautiful farm in north-east Tasmania that's being bought up right now by a rich UK business in order to stop farming and start creating these ridiculous things called carbon credits. How is that any benefit to our natural environment?

How is that any benefit to this country? Why are we allowing foreign interests to come in here and shut down Australian farming in the pursuit of this ridiculous idea of net zero? It has to be scrapped.

Let's fight the issues, get off this rubbish and instead start dealing with the issues that the Australian people face and lower their cost of living.