Foreign interference bills won’t stop China donations

This week the Turnbull government decided to push ahead with two bills — the Espionage and Foreign Interference Bill and Foreign Influence and Transparency Scheme (FITS) Bill in a bid to stop what is seen as an increase in political activity from a foreign government (again not the PRC, it could be anybody) that seeks to interfere or tamper with the nation’s political processes.

While everyone knows the key offender is the Chinese government, our political leadership from both sides of the spectrum is at pains not to say who is doing the interfering and/or tampering, lest they upset them.

Attorney-General Christian Porter will put both bills up for a vote in parliament next week. Both bills are likely to go through with Labor support, albeit with some predictable squabbling over some amendments.

This is all well and good but neither bill would restrain that same foreign government (without mentioning any one in particular) from making donations to political parties through individuals or representatives of companies incorporated in Australia.

Taking the coin from an autocratic government with strategic regional interests that are in open conflict with ours is wrong no matter how circuitously the money arrived. So the major parties shouldn’t do it, right? It should be a moral choice. In an ideal world it would not necessarily require legislation. Judgment from party principals would be sufficient.

Yeah, I know. That is naivety at a Charlotte’s Web level. I really must stop expressing the fanciful notion that our major political parties act in the national interest rather than their own.

The major parties, and indeed some of the minors, are such slavering, cash-burning monsters that they care only about the colour of the money they receive (pineapple is considered best), not where it came from.

GRAPHIC: Crackdown on foreign interference, espionage

Back in December last year, the Turnbull government stepped up to declare it would ban foreign political donations. The government enjoyed all the good publicity that came with the announcement.

But more than six months later, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017 sits gathering dust, permitting all political parties to continue to receive donations from foreign entities and individuals throughout the campaign period for the five by-elections on July 28 and beyond.

The bill is so deeply flawed, so badly drafted that as it stands the primary stated purpose of it — a prohibition on foreign political donations — would fail. Under the bill, an individual or entity could continue to make donations to a political party from a foreign or state-owned company provided it was incorporated in Australia, be it by cheque, money transfer or in the traditional form of cash in a brown paper bag.

The bill is such a mess that it may not be resolved by the next federal election.

This is the problem with reporting on governments’ intentions without seeing the colour of their money, so to speak. The Turnbull government is a world leader in making announcements and then making a hash of things later, either deliberately or by sheer force of ineptitude.

In December 2017, Matthias Corman issued a press release which briefly stated the objectives of the triumvirate of bills — the Espionage and Foreign Interference Bill, the Foreign Influence and Transparency Scheme (FITS) Bill and the Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform Bill.

The statement from the minister regarding donations was revealing. The government regarded third party entities as the problem while donations gathered by political parties were of no particular interest. “According to returns provided to the Australian Electoral Commission, in the 2015-16 financial year, which included the last election, third party campaign groups spent almost $40 million on political advertising, polling, and campaigning. We know that some of that funding came from foreign sources,” the statement said.

Unsurprisingly the bill as drafted is designed to make third party campaign groups accountable but political parties, not so much. Subsequently the bill has created what the bureaucrats like to call unintended consequences.

For example, Vinnies, a noted and much respected charity organisation might commence an advertising campaign posing a view on the causes of poverty and get scooped up under a broad definition of political expenditure. If the campaign exceeded $14,000 (chicken feed in terms of advertising campaigns) Vinnies would then be obliged to provide the Electoral Commission with a list of every donation it had received, foreign or local, nominate its senior staff and any membership they may hold in political parties, any federal or state payments they receive and a sworn declaration from a senior financial officer that the organisation had complied with electoral laws.

As far as the charity is concerned the toughest part would be having to identify and list every donation and gift it had received and from whom, even in amounts under the statutory limit for identification of the donor at $250, to prove that any donor had not cumulatively exceeded the limit. The charity would then be required to seek and receive a statutory declaration from the donor that they are either permanent residents or are acting on behalf of a company incorporated in Australia.

To make it even more draconian, a breach comes with a possible 10-year stretch in stir for the charity’s financial officer.

Take those onerous responsibilities and place them across every charity, charitable trust and not for profit in Australia and you’ll understand why the bill has been put on the high shelf in the Attorney-General’s office, gathering some Addams Family-sized cobwebs.

Clearly the government’s objective is to make groups that actively campaign against them like Get Up! and the trade unions more accountable but in attempting to do so, they have managed to throw every charitable man Jack or woman Jill in to the mix.

This is not rocket science. If there was a genuine desire from across the political spectrum to ban foreign donations, the parliament would act and do as almost every other western democracy does and ban foreign donations altogether or do as the state of New South Wales does and place a cap on donations from all sources, foreign or otherwise.

Problem solved.

Call me cynical, but with Liberal Party and Labor Party coffers running low (those forced by-elections don’t come cheap, you know), this bill or one like it will not pass into law in the life of this parliament. The money will continue to roll in and the majors will gather it up in both hands. Of course, they won’t be telling us where the money ultimately came from either.

This article was first published in The Australian on 8 June 2018.