HON ALISON XAMON (North Metropolitan) [9.47 pm]: I rise because I wanted to make some comments about the Australian Electoral Commission donations that were released at the start of this month. We finally got to see some of the donations that were made to political parties as long as 18 months ago, and I think that it is a complete disgrace that so much information can be hidden from the public and, indeed, from other political parties for so long. I think it is also a disgrace that so many of the parties in this chamber have continued to take advantage of a loophole in our laws that allows them to report according to the federal threshold, which is many times higher than the WA threshold, and ignore amounts smaller than the threshold. This has led to a ridiculous situation in which donors are reporting aggregated donation amounts that are above the threshold, but when my office has sought to cross-reference that, the donor does not appear at all in any of the party’s donation returns. We know that we are talking about millions and millions of dollars across Australia that have been hidden from view, because, disgracefully, the federal donation transparency rules allow that to happen. I think it is equally disgraceful that the various state parties within Western Australia have availed themselves of the loopholes that have let them avoid the much lower threshold of reporting within Western Australia.
What we can see from the AEC returns is pretty damning. The major parties, we note, are dependent on money that is coming in from the industries about which they are also making some pretty critical decisions. Half a million dollars has come to the Liberal Party from Woodside Energy Ltd, Chevron Corporation, Santos Ltd and Adani Australia, and Woodside and Chevron alone donated nearly $200 000 to the Labor Party. I think the clock is ticking down on our ability to mitigate the damage of climate change, but I note that the Liberal Party, the Labor Party and the Nationals WA have all been taking donations from the fossil fuel industry, and who knows what money might have been received since that 18-month period, because there is no transparency about what has happened. What I can be very clear about is that the Greens have in no way taken a single dime from the fossil fuel industry. Depending on their location, we know that these same industries are pushing very hard for expansion of our coal and gas industries. In Western Australia, we know that the government is currently making decisions about massive expansions to some of the dirtiest gas plants and gas fields in the country. Given what we know about the science, the time lines that are required to cut carbon out of our economy and the actions of international governments, I think it is, frankly, irrational to be embracing steps that lock us into allowing more carbon dioxide to go into the atmosphere, and I think it is irrational to celebrate steps that leave us with a high chance of WA having a number of stranded assets and a huge clean-up bill.
The jobs argument is thin. We know that there are just as many jobs, if not more, in a transition to a carbon-neutral economy; however, of course, that is not where the donations are coming from. No-one who actually knows what they are talking about is hoodwinked by the argument that gas is displacing coal internationally. If anything, it is displacing and slowing down the transition to renewables. This is in an environment in which renewable energy is becoming cheaper to build and operate and costs the consumer less in the end.
I do not think there is any good reason for any responsible government to champion the cause of the fossil fuel industry, but I think the examination of where the dollars are coming from has raised serious questions as to why this might be the case. I note there has recently been some suggestion that we might see donations reform, and I hope that is the case. I think that the sooner we get donations reform, including real-time reporting, the better.