Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (14:58): I rise today to oppose this bill in the strongest fashion. It has been interesting and important to listen to the debate, and I appreciate the comments that have gone before me. I came in in 2015, and at the start of 2015 there was constant frustration and outrage as the red shirt rorts were being unpacked both in this house through questions that we put to the government but also through the Ombudsman Deborah Glass. I always find it gobsmacking how somehow Labor members of Parliament must go to a certain school, must have certain levels of tuition so that, first, Daniel Andrews can stare down a TV camera and say, ‘No more taxes,’ and then lo and behold, we are up to 67 – probably about 60 by the time he left. It is just confounding how they can do this and think, arrogantly, that they should be entitled to get away with it. That is what they thought, taking almost $400,000 of taxpayer-funded money from the electoral office and campaigning in red shirts. The Ombudsman said, in both 2018 and 2019, it was an artifice and it was wrong. Twenty-one MPs got on board, some of whom were in that Parliament in 2018 because of those red shirts.
Bev McArthur: Michaela Settle is one.
Melina BATH: Yes, we could get the list out. Some of them have gone through other means – through transporting their dog around in a company car and various other interesting spaces and places. But we see this happening. The legislation was brought through, and it was flawed at the time. We see now that this legislation is flawed today.
I am a simple person. I grew up in the country, my parents worked hard, I went to uni – all of those things. But I am astounded at the amount of legal representatives that this government has as staff working on this. It went through the High Court – Hopper v Victoria – and the decision came down. Then, lo and behold, we waited seven weeks – seven weeks, with all that force, all that understanding, all those people poring over the law – for the government to then bring in legislation. Not through due process, like democracy demands – they brought it in, stuffed it through the lower house yesterday, and now it comes through here as an urgent bill. It could have come in five weeks ago. It could have come in, been first read and then gone off through the normal process – through the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee, SARC, and through bill briefings. Put your hand up if you were afforded a bill briefing, anyone in the opposition or on the crossbench. No, we were not. There was no due process – no request. We were not handed the bill until late yesterday at best. And now we see this bill is coming through.
Not only that, this is the house of review, and this morning we were lectured by members of the Allan government, who said that we should just roll over about the process of this house. The house of review should be about moving slowly and surely through a piece of legislation. This is a significant piece of legislation because it impacts taxpayers, it impacts due process and it impacts transparency. I am all for greater transparency and accountability, which we have not seen through the last 12 years of this government, but I am also about due process passing through Parliament. Indeed we see there was not due process, even to the point where this government in November last year brought through the Statewide Treaty. We were told by those opposite of the importance of Gellung Warl, of the First Peoples’ Assembly and of having a Statewide Treaty statement of compatibility. We were told, and we said no. We said we oppose treaty. We have a different route to Closing the Gap and self-determination. We were howled down. ‘Shame,’ it was said. This government now, in its fast-tracking of this somehow vital piece of legislation that had to be rushed through yesterday, has just cast that aside: ‘Sorry, it doesn’t suit our narrative. We can abandon that.’ We can debate whether it was important or not, but they threw it down our throats and we were supposed to cower under it. Now this government has cast that aside: ‘It doesn’t suit us.’ Indeed, the statement of treaty compatibility said:
The First Peoples’ Assembly of Gellung Warl (Assembly) was not given an opportunity to advise on the Bill and the Assembly did not otherwise make representations about the Bill’s effect on First Peoples.
The Assembly was not given an opportunity to advise on the Bill, as section 66 of the Treaty Act commenced on 1 May 2026 …
And it goes on. I find that slightly duplicitous. I find ‘What works for me now may not work for me in the future’ is what Jacinta Allan is running here. This is not minor machinery of a bill. This is about changing the rule book of political competition. Again, I am a simple person. I go to people in my electorate who I have worked hard for, and I say to my friends and family, ‘Do you think you would like to give me some money to run my campaign?’ The Nationals have gone through in detail about the caps, disclosures and all of those things. If you run a raffle, you have got to make sure that you meet those needs and requirements to the nth degree. Here we are told now that because of this High Court decision, the government is rewriting the rule book. We do not like black money – in fact it scares the living daylights out of me – but what I hate more is grey corruption from the Allan government. That is what we are seeing here through this process, through the Big Build and $15 billion worth of corruption. It is astounding and scary. I support the Westminster system and I support democracy, but I cannot support this bill.
I just want to go through a couple of other points in relation to this – first of all, the retrospectivity. I take the point that Mr Limbrick raised and I have heard all on our side raise: this value point of 1 July 2023. What is this government hiding? 1 July 2023 is just an airy-fairy arbitrary date. Well, is it? What happened just before 1 July 2023? Why don’t you cast the net back further, as we have suggested, back to 27 November 2022 – the election. Why don’t you make that a clean break? Therefore we will see that you have integrity. I am sorry that you are not and it is not applicable or appropriate.
To go to the unions – and this is the part that really completely frustrates – workers deserve to be in a union. They deserve to take fair pay home for a hard day’s work. They deserve pay and conditions. They deserve to be safe. They deserve to choose what to do with their money. But what we see with this government is that it is using this. Labor cannot claim it is cleaning up political donations while preserving many pathways for ongoing financial benefit from the union heavies. The CFMEU is not just any donor; it is a union that has been placed under administration after several findings and allegations of corruption, intimidation and organised crime in the construction sector. This should send a shiver down the spine of many Victorians about all the things that they are missing out on – the schools, the hospital upgrades, the shoddy roads – because of this black hole of corrupt money, and yet this government will continue to take those funds.
We see the bill excludes annual affiliation fees as a definition of ‘gift’. This means that Labor can continue to benefit from this union financial support while other parties and candidates are constrained by strict donation caps. Let us call it a level playing field and make it a level playing field. This is not donation reform; this is political self-preservation while rights are being limited by Parliament and we are being denied that scrutiny. The Nationals will oppose this bill. We oppose the fact that the government is doing this in a cost-of-living crisis and is seen to be lining its own pockets while pushing down and pushing away that fairness and transparency. We see our roads crumbling, as I have said. We see our hospitals and just the whole range of service industries under pressure.
In conclusion, this government needs to come to the table and at the very least take on our very good amendments that make it more of a level playing field. The government needs to turn over a new leaf. What would that cost? What would that do? You would have to have that gun that the Men in Black used to look at before they had complete amnesia. They would have to turn over and become reasonable, appropriate, respectful and honest with the Victorian population. You cannot clean up donations while keeping the union rivers of gold flowing. The Nationals oppose this bill.