Bill Debate: Electoral Further Amendment Bill 2026

BILL DEBATE:

‘ELECTORAL FURTHER AMENDMENT BILL 2026’.

Wednesday, 3 June 2026

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:10):

I rise to speak on the Electoral Further Amendment Bill 2026. I start by saying that this Bill comes from a desperate Government in its final days in an attempt to rig the system. We are here because the Labor Government introduced a set of dodgy laws that the High Court threw out. That is why we are here. The Government, under the former Premier Daniel Andrews, the king of dodginess, introduced a set of laws when he was Premier that the High Court threw out as unconstitutional, and it threw them out in a far broader way than anyone had anticipated. The High Court said these laws simply entrenched incumbency in a way that was unconstitutional. When the High Court delivered its judgement, we took the view and said publicly how strongly we believed as a Coalition that we should have laws in place that protected a robust system, a democratic system, an electoral system that allowed donations but ones that were guided by a number of principles. We wanted to ensure transparency in the system, we wanted to support a ban on overseas donations, and we wanted to support retrospectivity in the system. Of course we did. In fact on the day of the announcement, I asked the Premier’s office to announce retrospectivity, because of course you cannot have a system in place that does not have those principles in place.

Instead, we have a Bill that has just been introduced with a forced debate now that rigs the system for a Government that is in its last days. How does it do that? It suffocates all money going to opposing candidates and entrenches incumbency in a dramatic way and, frankly, in a shameful way. I suspect these laws will be considered by the High Court again. If you read media reports of what others are saying about these proposed laws, they are already flagging constitutional concerns – and those concerns are real. If you read the judgement of the High Court when it threw out the previous laws, it made it clear that there were substantial parts it felt were unconstitutional. It could not simply fix them, is what the High Court said, in short. It said it could not simply pull-out certain parts and fix them, so the entire swathe of part 12 was removed and found to be unconstitutional. It was found to be unconstitutional for a very good reason, which is why we have said we are concerned about a number of principles that underpin this Bill, and we confirmed our concerns immediately.

As I said, we let the Government knows how strongly we felt about supporting particular elements – retrospectivity, bans on foreign donations, these types of matters – which we of course discussed as points of important principle. But what the Government is proposing to do with this Bill is block all big money from the system, except from the unions. How can it be that this Government is proposing a set of laws that bans all big money, except from the unions? These laws are not just rigged; they are shonky, they are dodgy. There is no other way that you can
look at them. How can anybody possibly vote for laws that simply allow Labor to have funnelled to them millions of dollars? I say to the crossbench: I agree we need laws in place, I agree that it is urgent to do so, I agree that we need transparent laws in place as soon as possible, but how could you possibly vote for a set of laws that simply game the system? What I think it shows me is that this Government are so desperate and so concerned about their standing that they are willing to throw out any moral clarity in the laws they are proposing.

You can see it only today when the laws were introduced in the statement of compatibility that is attached to the proposed laws. Only a few weeks ago the Government put in place a law that requires each new Bill to include a statement of treaty compatibility. When it was attached to this Bill it made clear that the First Peoples’ Assembly was not given the opportunity to advise on the Bill. This Bill is so rushed the Government breached its own treaty obligations. It shows the lack of morality this Government is showing on this Bill.

No matter what Labor say, and they are saying a lot, we will not have it said that we have not supported basic underlying principles, and we have been very clear on that. But what we have also said is there has to be a constitutional validity to what is being proposed, because as the Premier has stated publicly, these laws will be challenged. The Premier said that. The Premier said these laws will be challenged. I suspect the challenge will be heard quickly. As has been discussed publicly, the challenge will occur quickly, because we are talking about a set of laws replacing a set of subject matter that the High Court threw out. So, I do believe that the speed with which they hear it will be quicker, and the Premier has also spoken to that. She has spoken to her view that a challenge will be heard before the election.

So how important is it to get right? Well, on the timeline the Premier has set out this Parliament will have been prorogued by the time that this matter is heard, so there will be no opportunity for the Parliament to come back and close any loophole. So, the importance of getting this right is absolutely critical, which is why we said from the get-go we have to make sure that what is being proposed will stand up to a further challenge. What did the Government say? ‘We will not negotiate on any of the constitutional matters contained in the Bill. We won’t negotiate on it.’ And they have not. They have not at any point negotiated on the matters that relate to the constitutionality.

My view has been for some time that the negotiation process on this Bill was in fact a sham. At no time really did I believe that the Premier genuinely wanted to work with the other side of the Chamber on laws that could work. From almost the get-go I did not believe the Premier. I am not saying that the Premier sending out her 15th-order adviser to deal with the negotiations on this Bill was an indication of that. I am not saying that the fact that her Minister – well, she did not have one at the time. Even now, I do not think anyone has had any consultation with the Minister. The Minister is just getting paid for the job; they are certainly not doing anything for it. No, that is wrong. The Minister stood behind the Premier at the press conference and nodded the other day, so she is doing something. But at no point has she had anything to do with this Bill, that I am aware of.

The Premier sent out her 15th-order adviser to negotiate on this Bill, which led me to believe from the get-go that the Premier had no real interest in proper negotiation on this Bill. I believe that the Premier wanted to do a deal with the crossbench immediately, because I believe that they knew that the crossbench would do a deal based on certain particulars of the legislation rather than the robustness or whether it was constitutional, and that appears to be the case. I look forward to hearing the crossbench contributions as to whether or not they feel the legality of the bill will stack up, because there is no point dealing with the particulars of a Bill if you feel the legal validity of it is shaky, especially when there is a real threat, as the Premier has said herself, of a challenge on the legislation imminently in the lead-up to the election. I do not think any good Victorian wants to see laws thrown out in the weeks before an election. I do not think any Victorian wants to see that, which is why it was so important that this draft legislation be right before it came to this place, and sadly, what this draft legislation is, is wrong. It is also rigging of the system by Labor – I will talk about it in more detail – on things like donation caps. There were conversations about donation caps, including as recently as last night. The Government came to us and offered $20,000 donation caps last night, and we agreed.

On every occasion that we have talked about caps throughout the process – what the cap should be – I have made the point that if you have too low caps, then I am concerned about the constitutional validity of the fact the Government is proposing higher public funding, because if you are entrenching advantage through higher public funding, then you certainly cannot disadvantage new entrants. By keeping very low caps, I am concerned that – well, in fact I do not think it is a point for debate; I think it is actually just fact – the public funding
eclipses what the donation cap is. But on donation caps in those consultations, what did the Government say back? Did they say to me, ‘Well, James, let’s discuss the constitutional merit of the argument. Let’s talk through the merit of whether or not the cap level’s right versus the public funding’? Do you know what they said? ‘But we’re worried about west matters.’ That is what they said to me: ‘We’re worried about west matters in our seats.’ And I get it. I get that Labor’s entire strategy is to suffocate money out of opponents. I think that becomes very clear.

I think the principal failure in this Bill is the Government’s cravenness to increase public funding in a cost-of-living crisis and keep caps low in a way that I think will be the core of why this proposed set of laws will fall over. There are a number of issues with it, but centrally I believe that mix between low caps and high increases in public funding will be the core of the constitutional challenge, because I think it is the biggest concern.

But what did Labor do when we discussed the issue? They said, ‘But we want more public funding. We said, ‘Well, are you proposing public funding increases on the per vote public funding or the administration funding?’ For the house’s background, there are two forms of public funding – one for each primary vote and one for each party. The Government said, ‘No, no, no, we don’t want to increase the per vote funding, because that might assist the parties who are not elected but are receiving strong support in the community. We only want to increase public administration funding, because we are here. We are here, and that won’t cause issues in relation to the challenges that will be mounted’ – in the Government’s words – ‘from the west.’ But when they design a system that is based on squeezing out their opponents and they design a system that puts Labor’s hand further into your pocket so they can take more money out, it is doomed to fail.

That is what we will see with these proposed laws, I suspect, because the problems that the High Court identified with the first set of laws, which underpinned the reason they threw them out, are now worse. Objectively, when you look at what is being put forward, it is hard not to see them as being worse. They are worse. The problems are worse because the hurdles with things like, as I just spoke to, the differential between low donation caps and public funding have actually got greater. I suspect that if this is challenged, the core of what the challenge may look to is that difference, because new entrants can now raise very little and the Labor Party is taking more money – not because they went to an election and elected more Members of Parliament or saw more people vote for them by way of primary vote. No. What this Bill does is simply say, ‘We are going to significantly increase the public admin funding through this bill.’ When
I say increase it, for the first Member under the previous laws it was $200,000. What is being proposed is $300,000 – a 50 per cent increase. If you are an independent Member raising that difference with these caps, it is an enormous challenge. In fact, you could argue that differential is so great that it is not possible. When the increase on the donation cap has been so small, it is hard not to see that being at the core of the issue.

We have heard through the debate on these matters that by raising our concerns about the legal validity somehow, we are not concerned about the fact that there are no laws. I would start by saying these proposed laws are retrospective. So, whatever has happened since the High Court struck it down, if it was in breach of the new laws, it will be accounted for, and it will be accounted for speedily. There is no question about that. I do not think there has been any public debate in opposition to that. I do not think anybody is saying, ‘Let’s keep the overseas
money dark so that it can’t be banned.’ I do not think anyone has mounted that argument. I do not think anybody has said that donations should not be declared.
I do not think anybody said that. Of course, there have been conversations about where the donation cap should kick in and what the declaration figure should be in terms of what is disclosed. I think those things have been discussed, but they have been discussed by the Government. To think that the Bill today is the final position of the Government and has been the final position of the Government for some weeks is just factually wrong.

As I said earlier, there have been ongoing conversations between not just the Coalition, but I am sure other Members of this place and the other place as to what those numbers are. I do not think that is unreasonable. I think having a conversation about those things is actually a good thing, not a bad thing. At no point have we stopped attempting in good faith to negotiate. But what struck me on all of these matters was that the Government did not appear in any way interested in a set of negotiations that went to the concerns we had as to why the High Court struck down the laws and what we see as problems with this proposal in moving forward into this Bill form. The only answer to why the Government
have not considered changing what they had proposed regarding those matters, the only possible conclusion that you could draw, is the raw, rank politics of wanting to rig the system, because from the moment the increases in public funding were raised the first thing I know I said was, ‘We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.’ It was the very first thing I said. How could a major party want to put their hand further into the pockets of Victorians and take more money? How could they want to do that? But that is what these proposed laws do.

On top of that, of course when we raised our concerns about big money being banned except for the unions, you can imagine how much interest there was in that conversation. You can just imagine it, can’t you? You can just imagine the conversation happening: ‘But, Labor, under your proposed laws only the unions can tip millions of dollars into your pocket – only the unions. All other money is banned. How is that a fair and reasonable set of laws?’ And the Government’s response was very, very short, I can assure you. The idea that they accidentally tripped into that outcome is laughable. It is by design. These laws rig the system, and unfortunately, I cannot see the other place fully thinking through the outcome of supporting these laws. I suspect unfortunately that the Government will have worked with the crossbench on these laws and that they will support them. I know of one group of members who in their negotiations with the government said, ‘All we want is more public funding.’ There was no meaningful point of negotiation other than increasing public funding. That is the kind of horse-trading that unfortunately has happened here. And the government have delivered that in this bill. They are increasing public funding. But the meaningful debate about whether these laws stack up and a Bill that comes forward those accounts for those concerns has not happened, which is why we do not support them. Of course we do not support them. How could we support them? What, a rigged system? I can understand why the Premier is of a mind to rig the system.

As I said in the conversations around this Bill, the focus was on things like West Party matters and their political fortunes in certain Labor-incumbent seats. I get where they are coming from. I do not agree with it, but I get it. I understand where they are coming from. That is their concern. That is what has led the drafting of this bill. It is transparent for all, which is why the law is being rammed through this place. But the moment of judgement will be, if these laws are challenged, what the High Court says. I suspect that not only will the previous judgement see other Labor states’ laws fall over, but soon I suspect the federal laws will fall over too, because Labor, in typical form, have copied and pasted Daniel Andrews’s laws around other parts of the country. Unfortunately for Labor, when one falls over, they all fall over. I suspect you will see other states’ and the federal laws fall over.

What is interesting on the federal position – here is a little bit of an insight – is the federal Labor Government is so worried about their standing on their laws that when the state case was being heard in the High Court the Federal Government had more lawyers in the room than the State Government did. What does that tell you? That tells you they are worried. What I understand in relation to the federal law is there is a section in it that says if one single section is unconstitutional, the entire law falls over. It is a complete, 100 per cent clean Bill of health that the Federal Government is seeking with the High Court challenge to the federal laws, or those laws fall over.

As I said, we do not support what Labor has proposed. We do not support rigged laws. We have also committed to reforming them after the election. I have said that clearly. I have said clearly that we will reform these laws if we are elected. I have also said that we are considering our legal position, because my view is these laws are not constitutional. Why wouldn’t we consider that? Why wouldn’t we consider our legal position? Of course we would. Now that we have the Bill, we can consider it in detail, because these laws are unconstitutional. You can see the number of people coming out of the woodwork who have similar views on the validity of the laws that are being proposed, which is why we cannot support them.

These laws entrench incumbency, and they entrench incumbency worse than the laws that were thrown out, because they suffocate new entrants at the same time as disproportionately increasing public funding. I suspect that will be the heart of the challenge to these laws, because in terms of the issues that exist there are
many issues, and I have spoken to some of them. That, in my view, is where these laws fall over, because the government took a policy view to only consider issues relating to nominated entities and ignore the rest of the judgement. Why? Because of politics. This is about rigging the system.

This is about a Premier who is so worried about her own seat that she is announcing sporting events and music concerts in her seat at a rate higher than we have ever seen from a state government in Victoria’s history. The only thing she is doing between announcing events in her own seat is doorknocking. Sadly, it does not sound like she is getting much chop. I can understand when you are sitting on a 60–40 in your seat why you would be worried. I get it. When the Premier is sitting on – I should say it the other way – 40–60, I get why they would be worried. I get why you would be putting your sneakers on and trying to announce events in your seat, but rigging the system is not the way to fix it. Victorians will see it; we will not stand for it.

I suspect we will see these laws challenged in the manner that I discussed. Unfortunately, we might see these laws fall over, and no Victorian wants to see that before the election. We have tried in good faith to avoid it. Unfortunately, Labor has played politics by trying to rig the system with this bill.