Bill Shorten has urged the prime minister to use his overseas visit to make it clear “foreign interests” should not give donations to Australian political parties as Malcolm Turnbull attends the G20 summit in China.
Shorten’s pointed remarks were made as his own manager of opposition business in the Senate, Sam Dastyari, continued to defend himself over a political donation from the Top Education Institute after he overspent his travel allowance.
The private education institute is run by businessman Minshen Zhu, who has links to the Chinese government.
Political donations continue to be a vexed issue for both sides of politics. Zhu has been photographed with senior Labor and Coalition politicians and has donated to both parties.
Shorten defended Labor, which he said was pushing for donation reform at the last election while Turnbull was “forking out millions from his own pocket doing everything he could to cling to office”.
Malcolm Turnbull reportedly donated $1m to the Liberal party – which he has refused to confirm or deny.
“This is despite numerous Liberal party donations scandals – including the Free Enterprise Foundation and a former Victorian Liberal party director being jailed for donation fraud,” Shorten said.
“When faced with these scandals, the best Mr Turnbull can do is blame everyone else. It’s beyond time that Mr Turnbull joined with me in repairing a broken system.
“When Mr Turnbull meets business leaders overseas, he has the opportunity to make it clear donations from foreign interests should not be given to Australian political parties.”
On Friday Turnbull warned political donation reform was a complex area, particularly in regard to links with foreign governments.
“You’ve got to remember that a number of these donations have been made by – you talk about Chinese interests – some of these Chinese donors are Australian citizens,” the prime minister told Neil Mitchell.
“Because you could say for example, that no donations should be made to political parties other than by people on the Australian electoral roll, Australian citizens for the most part.
“But that would not outlaw donations from people that may have some connections with a foreign government who are Australian citizens. So how then do you deal with the questions of connection?”
A spokeswoman said he would not be adding to those comments. But in the past, Turnbull has supported limiting donations to individuals on the electoral roll, thereby cutting out any donations from companies and union organisations – foreign or otherwise.
Labor has promised to reduce the donation disclosure threshold from the current level of $13,000 (indexed to inflation) to a fixed $1,000. It also wants to ban ‘donation splitting’ where donations are spread between different branches of political parties and associated entities – like the Free Enterprise Foundation.
Labor would also ban foreign donations, anonymous donation above $50, increase penalties for donation abuses and link public funding to campaign expenditure.
Labor believes this would prevent “serial candidates like Pauline Hanson making a windfall from standing for election”.
Labor’s policy is to ask the joint standing committee on electoral matters (JSCEM) to report on “real time” disclosure of donations. Currently donations do not surface until more than six months afterwards.
