Labor is pushing for the biggest shake-up of funding and disclosure laws in more than a decade to curtail an “arms race” it says is being fuelled by billionaires, while also offering parties and candidates more taxpayer dollars for every vote.
The overhaul, set to be introduced to parliament on Monday, would limit political donors to $20,000 per candidate in a calendar year.
An “anti-avoidance provision” would also cap donors at $600,000 in total to apply to companies, individuals, business groups, unions and any other givers.
Separately, candidates would for the first time face spending limits, set at $800,000 per candidate and $90 million for a political party across the nation.
Near real-time disclosure of donations would also be introduced under the changes, as well as a dramatic slashing in the threshold for disclosure to $1,000 from the current level of $16,900.
Labor is hopeful the bill can pass in the next fortnight after an in-principle, though not yet iron-clad, agreement with the Coalition.
Don Farrell, the minister in charge of electoral matters, hopes to pass the bill within a fortnight after securing the in-principle support of the Coalition. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
The changes, which would not apply until after the next election, would require candidates and parties to reveal their funders roughly two weeks after the end of a calendar month.
The pace of disclosure would quicken to weekly once an election campaign begins, accelerating to a daily publication during the seven days leading up to polling day and for seven days after that date to prevent candidates backloading payments.
The government is proposing to help parties and candidates manage the additional administrative burden caused by the changes by boosting public funding per vote by about to $5 from the current rate of $3.346, and the rate of $2.914 for the last election.
That funding is available to candidates that win a primary vote of 4 per cent or more. At the last election, the Australian Electoral Commission paid out more than $75 million.
If they maintain their vote share, the Labor and Liberal parties would each get nearly $20 million more than they did last time, with millions more for the Greens and One Nation and tens of thousands for most successful independents.
Special Minister of State Don Farrell said the reforms would “tackle big money in our electoral system and protect our democracy.”
“Years of inquiries and evidence from multiple elections show us that the biggest weakness to our electoral system is big money influencing our political system.
“Over the last decade we have seen billionaires repeatedly attempt to sway our elections, not through policy or participation, but through money and misinformation.”
Once passed by the House of Representatives, where Labor has a majority, the bill is expected to be sent to the Senate at the end of the week.
The government is seeking support from the opposition and Senate crossbench the following week, which insiders increasingly speculate may be the final sitting period of the parliament as Labor prepares for an election in early 2025.
Caps on the way in and the way out
The proposed caps would put limits on political donations and political spending. (ABC News: Tom Crowley)
The limits are deliberately generous in a bid to take the sting out of a near-certain legal challenge from Clive Palmer.
Still, they would have been enough to severely curtail the $123 million his party spent at the last election.
That is not too different to the sums spent by the Coalition ($132 million) and Labor ($116 million), who would also be curtailed.
But crucially Palmer donated almost all of that money himself, so he would have been limited to $600,000 spread among his candidates.
Simon Holmes à Court’s Climate 200 group, which funded several independent campaigns in 2022, would likely be constrained from doing so in its current form.
The model could also constrain teal independents. All six newly elected teal MPs spent more than $800,000 on their 2022 campaigns, and some nearly three times that.
In many cases, a large chunk of that money came from fundraising arm Climate 200, which may have to consider registering as a political party if it wants to provide extensive support to candidates.
Unions and business groups making donations would be covered by the same rules as other entities. They would also face an $11 million spending limit on their own campaigns, as would campaign outfits GetUp and Advance.
Truth in ad laws also to be introduced, but unlikely to progress
The bill would enact a swathe of recommendations made by the cross-parliamentary electoral matters committee.
But others would be left on the cutting-room floor, including extra representation for the states and territories.
And while Labor will also introduce a bill for truth standards in political ads, based on the South Australian model, that appears to be set up for failure with the Coalition staunchly opposed, and Labor will not seek to progress it in the final parliamentary sitting fortnight for the year.
Speaking prior to the release of these details, Dr Catherine Williams of the Centre for Public Integrity told the ABC’s Insiders: On Background podcast caps were “a really important part of a solution to the problem of the influence of money in politics.
“Just because you can raise a million dollars or more, doesn’t mean that you should be able to spend it,” she said.
Dr Williams added it was important that any caps did not advantage incumbent candidates and warned against rushing their passage.
Integrity advocate Dr Catherine Williams said a bill rammed through the parliament with major party support would not be the best outcome. (ABC News: Darryl Torpy)
“We wouldn’t want to see it get through parliament as quickly as possible…
“Genuine consultation results in really meaningful improvement. We don’t get the best outcome for democracy when a bill is rammed through parliament, say, because it has major party support.”
She suggested the government pass straightforward elements now, such as real-time disclosure and the $1,000 disclosure threshold, but leave the rest until after the election, “until such time as there can be genuine consultation and genuine scrutiny.”