Motion: Government Business Program Amendment

MOTION:

‘GOVERNMENT BUSINESS PROGRAM AMENDMENT’.

Wednesday, 3 June 2026.

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (10:53):

How can it possibly be that this Government would be in such a rush to rig the donations system that they would want to slam a donation Bill through this Chamber so immediately, presumably without any real debate? We know why. Because there are such serious constitutional flaws with it, why would they want it debated? The Government will say to you that there are no constitutional problems. What I would say, respectfully, is they got it wrong last time. All you can do is look at what occurred when they tried to pass bills through on the electoral donations system in 2018. The High Court struck them down.

We have said since they struck them down that we want to see a robust set of laws that starts from the principle of being constitutionally valid. The Government said it did not want to talk about any matters in this Bill that relate to the constitutional matters. We said they got it wrong last time and we have no faith that they will not get it wrong again. You certainly cannot start from a viewpoint of dealing with a bill that has significant constitutional problems if you will not discuss the constitutional issues in it.

When we see the Government today attempting to ram through a Bill – second read it this morning, debate it this afternoon – all we can say is that this Government is ramming through a rigged Bill because they are in fear of losing an election and want to try and entrench their advantage. I suspect the High Court will have a further say. I do hope that Members not from just our side of the Chamber but other Members are persuaded by my argument that a Bill of this magnitude needs to be considered properly. If there are constitutional problems with it, those issues need to be dealt with.

What this Bill does, by definition, is it further entrenches advantage to the Labor Party, which is at the heart of why the High Court threw out the previous laws. It entrenches their advantage further. How you might ask. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis what is Labor proposing to do? Increase public funding. If you felt that 67 new or increased taxes and charges were not enough under the life of this Government, the Premier has put her hand out even further into your pocket – from all of us – to take out money and give it to the Labor Party. How grubby that you are creating a set of electoral laws which is based around the Premier putting her hand into your pocket and giving it to the Labor Party. I mean, that is the circular economy under this Government.

That is why we need proper debate on this Bill. The idea that it gets dealt with in a couple of hours just goes to show the behaviour of this Government and the nature of trying to ram through a rigged Bill. It is appalling. When the Government stands up and says, ‘We don’t need to debate it. We’re all okay,’ all I would say is they got it wrong last time – at the taxpayers’ expense, by the way; they footed the bill of the High Court challenge. They got it wrong, and I suspect they are going to get it wrong again with this Bill. Time will see.

This time we will not have to wait years; I suspect we are only going to be waiting a matter of months. Unfortunately, just before an election I suspect we might see these laws fall over, and we will see a two-time loser of a Government rushing through Bills which are only about rigging Labor’s advantage. It is wrong. It is morally wrong. It is outrageous. We will not stand for it. We certainly are calling it out now and will not support that today.