Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2018 - consideration in detail

Mr HAWKE (Mitchell—Special Minister of State) (16:45): I want to thank the member for Mayo for this amendment. The amendment proposes a form of regular disclosure of political donations. The government is committed to consulting all the relevant experts through the open government partnership to progress the work of open government. Civil society groups, however, as the opposition has noted, who would have to disclose under the electoral funding and disclosure scheme, would need sufficiently sophisticated internal administrative processes to deal with any new requirements of the new regime. Unlike the many other amendments that have been adopted in this bill, this proposal hasn't been subjected to consultation with regulated entities and there hasn't been consultation with the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in a thorough policy process. For those reasons, the government's committed to a considered and collaborative approach to real-time disclosure and will not be supporting the amendment. I note that this amendment was considered in the Senate and was rejected.

Question negatived.

Bill agreed to.