SpeechHon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I just acknowledge my colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith for his questions—and also all of the colleagues who have spent the last period of time engaged on this bill through the select committee process and those who that have provided their submissions.Just coming to the three questions that the honourable member just raised in terms of the issues that we're trying to deal with broadly the proposed changes are multifaceted: lowering the threshold for publicly disclosing donations and contributions from two parties from $15000 to $5000 as Mr Goldsmith rightly identified; amending the reporting requirements for party donations by reducing the threshold from $30000 to $20000 and requiring disclosure of donations above the threshold within 10 working days only within a general election year; requiring parties to report non-anonymous donations under $15000; requiring parties to disclose their annual financial statements; and requiring candidates to publicly report on loans from unregistered lenders to support their campaign.The issues that we are trying to deal with collectively is enhancing the public's trust and confidence in our electoral donation system. Recent surveys have shown us that over 70 percent of those that have participated do not have trust or confidence in our electoral donation system.The rationale for splitting out the difference or the variation for candidates and what's required to be disclosed and the variable thresholds for party donations is based on first the current model to which we are making amendments. But also when we've come to consider the $5000 threshold—I think that's the one that my colleague focused on in particular—why that $5000 threshold? What evidence is there to support that this would be appropriate and what evidence have we seen that this might work?I think that what we've tried to do and the member will be aware that when we initially tabled these proposals the threshold that we had proposed to set was at $1500. Officials during that period of time engaged with all political parties' secretaries to try to get a real understanding of the practical implications as well as the actual objective that we're trying to achieve which is enhancing that trust and confidence of the general public that you don't by access to political decision-making.The advice and feedback that came back through that process was that the $5000 threshold strikes the appropriate balance between transparency privacy the compliance burden placed on parties the right to freedom of expression and sufficient donation revenues for parties. The existing threshold of $15000 is also arguably an arbitrary threshold.What we sought to do then was to look at the thresholds for disclosing the identity of political donors in comparable jurisdictions. We looked to Australia in terms of what the disclosure thresholds were there. In the Australian Capital Territory their threshold was $1000 same as in New South Wales and Queensland. We looked to Victoria; again just over $1000 was their threshold. We looked over to Canada at a very relatively low threshold; it's $200 in Ontario $250 in Alberta and British Columbia.So what we've tried to do here is to approach the issues—the thesis that we were trying address: enhance that trust and confidence in our political donation system and then look at the evidence that would support a reduction but also doing that in quite a practical way. We're all politicians in this House and we all understand what it is to work with small community—often heavy voluntary basis within the communities. I always think about my own organising committee and think practically what will the onus be and the obligations be on those that are members within the political parties and what will the compliance measures mean for them?We addressed that in quite a substantive way and that was indeed the work that the officials had done prior to the bill coming into the House making sure that the amendments would be workable and practical.I come to that third question that the honourable member put to me. It was how do we think political parties should be funded? Well we're comfortable with the way in which political parties are funded that we seek donations from those that seek to support us. We're comfortable with those that seek to support us being required to disclose their identities. We're comfortable as decision makers to attest to the public to the general public at large that whilst we graciously accept support—and fiscal support at that—we don't have any expectation or we never purport that that support for our political party ideology results in tangible power to impact our decisions as decision makers.So at the member also rightly pointed out we have established an independent electoral panel. They make choose to delve into these issues as to the way political parties are funded in the future but it's certainly not something I'm currently considering now.