Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Chair. It's my pleasure to speak on the committee stage of this the Electoral Amendment Bill which the National Party is not supporting. The context for those tuning in to this debate is that the Government in its wisdom has set up an independent panel to consider a range of things relating to the electoral bill and the way that we run our elections and that was supposed to be bipartisan—it was claimed to be bipartisan although we in the National Party on the other side didn't have any great engagement in the appointment of that panel. Nevertheless in the meantime before that panel is supposed to report back after the next election the Government has brought through this legislation changing some elements of the electoral law before that group have had their chance to have their say. The primary change in this legislation in clause 4 is reducing the amount of money—or lowering the threshold—before party donations have to be declared or the people who make the donation need to be declared from $15000 where it has been for nearly 20 years to $5000. The original proposal was $1500. So the first question I have for the Minister is what is the issue she's trying to deal with here? Because the context is there are two thresholds in the electoral bill. One is a $1500 threshold before people's names need to be published in relation to donations for candidates. Bearing in mind that under the rules—the electoral rules—candidates can only spend $30000 in the electoral period a $1500 donation would represent about 5 percent of the amount that they are entitled to spend and the sense was that there's a certain logic about a relatively significant donation within the context of what a candidate can spend being made public for transparency purposes. When we come to the party vote a party standing in a large number of electorates can spend up to $3 million or more than $3 million in the regulated period. And so a donation of less than $15000 you know $14000 for example would represent a very tiny fraction of that overall spend. So I wonder whether the Minister might clarify for us: does she think that it's possible that a party's policies would be altered in such a way because of such a donation and what is she concerned about? And secondly I'd like to know whether she sort of understands the desire of some people to donate to a party without necessarily having their name published—at a reasonable level because obviously one has to draw a line somewhere and for 20-odd years or nearly 20 years $15000 has been a threshold that people have understood. There are plenty of people around the country who for good reason don't want to have their names published. They might be concerned that they may attract attention from people they may be worried about future contracts they may be worried about all sorts of things. I'd be interested to know from the Minister what she thinks about that.And then the broader issue is how does she think parties should be funded because the natural sort of consequence of this legislation is it in essence makes it more difficult for political parties to raise funds given the reality that some people don't want to have their names published widely and so what alternative funding does she have in mind for political parties? Some questions to open up the debate for this clause. Thank you very much.