How often can a minister promise they’re about to do something before the media cottons on that they’re not delivering?
That’s the vexing question posed by Don Farrell, who is special minister of state as well as trade minister. It was June when Crikey last checked in on Farrell’s endless promising of imminent legislation to enforce Labor’s preelection commitment to overhaul political donation laws — along with a planned attack on Clive Palmer and teal election funding. Farrell had previously claimed the reforms were “perfectly capable of being dealt with in our first term”.
But the best was yet to come. In July, Farrell told Michelle Grattan he would introduce the legislation in August. Then in August, Farrell told Grattan that no, it’d be introduced in September. He told the ABC that too. September went by, and nothing — except in late September, Farrell said the laws would appear by the end of the year. At the end of September, we were informed by the Financial Review that Farrell was “close to finalising” the bill.
There are only three sitting weeks left this year — and only two of both houses. Farrell’s bill won’t be passed this year. There are also only three sitting weeks — and two of both houses — before next year’s budget, according to the mooted sitting calendar for 2025. That means the bill is unlikely to pass before the budget, which will almost certainly start the 2025 election campaign.
This relentless non-achievement is of a piece with Farrell’s wider work as special minister of state: a check of his website reveals little activity of any kind this year. Does Farrell ever do anything in his SMOS portfolio?
To track Farrell’s hard yakka doing absolutely zilch, Crikey is introducing SMOS Watch, a semi-regular tracker to keep readers apprised of the minister’s achievements, to save you the time and effort of checking whether he’s got around to implementing a reform Labor promised three years ago.
SMOS WATCH
Days since Farrell issued a media release as SMOS, according to his website: 214
Days since Farrell made a speech or press conference as SMOS, according to his website: 144
Days since Farrell promised donations reform was nearly there: 21
Number of times Farrell has promised donations reform was nearly there: one (Oct 2023), two (March 2024), three (July 2024), four (Aug 2024), five (Sept 2024).
Likelihood of Australians not knowing full details of who contributed to political parties in the lead-up to the 2025 election: 100%.
