Senator BOURNE (11.20 a.m.) —The Democrats, like Senator Evans and Dr Hewson, agree with the principle of a register of senators' interests. We believe, and have believed since we first dealt with this in the parliament on 4 May 1992, that something like this is necessary, just so that we can show members of the general public out there, who we hope trust us—they should trust most of us, at any rate—that we are being open about what our interests are and that we are showing what we have that can possibly influence the way we vote in this place, which not only influences them but influences us as well.

  On 4 May and, I think, 19 May last year, when this was first discussed, the Democrats and the opposition had a lot of problems with it. In response to that the Democrats went away and looked at all those problems. We think we came up with reasonable answers to most of them. I put those in letters to Senator McMullan and to Senator Hill and sent them off, requesting that they get back to me with what they thought about them. The government did get back to me and has changed the register of senators' interests to accommodate almost all of those. I will just go through the changes.

  The first and probably the most important change the government put in to accommodate the Democrats' main problems was that the spouses' and independent children's interests would be confidential to the committee of senators' interests, except where a conflict of interest arises. It did seem, and it still seems to us, that it is unfair to spouses to have their interests published to the general public. They did not get into politics. Heaven knows, they support those of us who are in politics, but it should not be that they have to have published to the world in general what their interests are. Now their interests will not be published unless a conflict of interest arises and unless the committee of senators' interests sees that and sees that it is in the best interests of the parliament and of good government to publish them. That is excellent.

  We asked that the value of declarable gifts be increased from $250 to $500 for official gifts, because that is the standard amount which is used by the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet for official gifts which have to be declared. That is why the first $250 was in there. Seeing that it has gone up to $500 for ministers and for official gifts from overseas, we thought it should go up to $500 within the Commonwealth as well. We asked the government to spell out official sources and it has done that.

  Another one which we thought was quite interesting was the declaration of membership of organisations. We have asked for the declaration of membership of organisations to be limited to those organisations in which a senator is an office holder or to which he or she contributes over $100 in any single calendar year. The reason we did that was that one of the Democrat senators discovered, in reading the small print of her National Geographic magazine, that she was a member of National Geographic because she subscribed to the magazine. She would not have known that except that she happened to be on a plane one day and had nothing else to read so was reading the small print.

Senator Boswell —That proves the stupidity of the scheme.

Senator BOURNE —Senator Boswell is correct that it does prove the stupidity of the first proposal. A person would not have been aware of being a member, not being told that membership was involved in subscribing to some organisations. Obviously, a person who has a distinct interest in an organisation is either going to be an office holder or is going to donate a substantial amount of money every year. We believe that over $100 is a substantial amount of money to donate to any cause. I donate more than $100 to Amnesty International every year and probably to some other organisations; I could go through my chequebook and find out what I did donate to.

  There are a lot of organisations that people join because they think at the time, `Oh, yes, that is very worthwhile'. They put aside a bit of money, send it off and then forget about it. We do not want to be put in the position where we are telling a lie to this parliament. So that was put into the new registration of senators' interests. We asked that alterations be tabled every six months and that was agreed to.

  Senator Hill has said that he believes that people who are guilty of a serious contempt of the Senate should pay the price that people who are guilty of a breach of privilege of the Senate pay. That is a good principle, and that is one that we had identified as well. At the moment, the penalty which is paid by people who breach the privilege of the Senate is $5000 or imprisonment for six months, and as a maximum penalty I think that is fair enough. That is what we have got in the Privileges Act, and I do not see why it should not be a penalty for this as well. Members of the government baulked at that when we said it. I think they thought six months imprisonment was a bit stiff for putting the wrong thing on a form, and I can see that point of view as well. At the moment there is nothing in there about that.

  Senator Hill has given us a lot of amendments. Unfortunately, the first time any of us up here had seen them was 10 minutes before he started speaking. I have not had any opportunity to read them. Senator Hill unfortunately did not have the time to get back to my letter of 4 May 1992, so he has not replied to me in writing about my changes. He has not even spoken to me about my changes.

Senator Hill —Are you still pursuing those?

Senator BOURNE —Because I gave them to the government, most of them are already in there.

Senator Hill —What about throwing us into gaol? Did you include that?

Senator BOURNE —I do not think I will pursue throwing honourable senators into gaol, although sometimes it does appeal. But no, certainly not.

  I do not think that we can vote for anything we have not seen before and have not studied. Senator Hill says that there are a couple of good things in here, and having had a first look at them I think there probably are. But I cannot possibly vote for something that I have only just seen and have not studied. I have not had a look at how it fits into all the other bits and pieces.

  This would be a very good thing to bring up as a notice of motion and bring on in general business. It is easy to change, because it is inside the Senate. It does not mean changing of legislation and it does not need to go to the House of Representatives. We can do it here, ourselves. It will be relatively easy to change this inside the Senate at a later date—even in the next week of sitting—but I need more time to go through these. There are pages and pages of them. I have not looked at them yet, the Democrats have not looked at them, and we will all want to look at them before we can decide on them. I am afraid we will have to put those off to another day.

  In the meantime, we will be voting for the document in which the government has taken account of our concerns, which we think is probably as good as we are going to get. As I said before, Senator Evans and Dr Hewson have said that we are showing the world and we are showing the Australian people that we are prepared to be honest about what our interests are, and we are prepared to show them, when we are voting on what affects them, how it affects us as well.