It is clear that trust in democracy is declining and reform of the political donations regime would go a long way to restoring that trust. While there are issues with this Bill which have resulted in the committee recommending that it not be passed, the existing funding and disclosure regime requires reform.
Labor is proud to have continually fought for reform of political donations and improved transparency throughout our political system.
It was a Labor Government under Bob Hawke that first introduced a donations disclosure scheme in 1983. The disclosure threshold was set at $1 000 and for the first time, electoral returns were required to be provided to the Australian Electoral Commission 15 weeks after an election.
In 2006 the Liberal Government under Prime Minister John Howard increased the disclosure threshold to $10 000 and linked it to CPI.
Ever since then, Labor’s policy has been to return the disclosure threshold to the level set by Bob Hawke.
We wanted to go further than just lowering the threshold though, and to that end we took a clear and comprehensive donations policy to both the 2016 and 2019 elections.
In 2016 Labor committed to:
reduce the donation disclosure limit from the then level of $10 000 (indexed to inflation) to a fixed $1 000;
prohibit the receipt of foreign donations;
ban ‘donation splitting’ where donations are spread between different branches of political parties and associated entities to avoid disclosure obligations;
ban anonymous donations above $50;
link public funding to campaign expenditure; and
introduce new offences and increased penalties for abuses of the political donation disclosure regime.
Labor has successfully secured reform on many of these commitments, even from opposition.
A ban on foreign political donations is now in place, and public funding has been successfully linked to campaign expenditure — preventing candidates and parties from profiting from the electoral system.
Labor has two private Senator’s bills before the parliament – one to lower the donations disclosure threshold to $1 000 and remove indexation, and the other to introduce a real time disclosure regime. Other necessary reforms include implementing donations and expenditure caps, increasing the rate of public funding of elections to reduce reliance on fundraising and providing administrative funding to political parties and elected independents to cover the increased cost of compliance.
Our regulatory body, the Australian Electoral Commission, must also be appropriately funded to conduct compliance activities and improve its website so that the donations regime is as transparent as possible.
These initiatives will allow voters to see who is donating to political parties and will help restore voters’ faith in democracy.