February 1 - 28, 2025: Issue 639

 

Federal Electoral Reform Bill passed by The Labor-Liberal Alliance

On Thursday February 13 2025 the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill 2024 was passed by both Houses.

The Albanese government secured Liberal party support for the new regime covering political donations and spending, after making some concessions. The government agreed to increase the proposed threshold above which donations must be disclosed from $1000 to $5000. The present disclosure threshold is $16,900.

In addition, it boosted the cap on individual donations to a candidate or party from the earlier proposed $20,000 to $50,000.

State and territory branches of parties count separately, meaning the cap is effectively $450,000 for parties with a full federal structure like Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals and the Greens.

The draft bill aimed to cap at $20,000 the amount peak bodies such as the ACTU, Business Council and Minerals Council could take from their member organisations for their own national political campaigns, and would have constrained what is current practice. An amendment agreed as part of the Liberal-Labor alliance will instead let them collect $250,000 in affiliate fees from each member.

The national party spending cap of $90 million for each of the Liberal and Labor parties will be unchanged, so too the $800,000 cap for each candidate to spend atop that.

The Centre for Public Integrity stated this is

An affront to our democratic process: the Electoral Legislation Amendment process

Their February 13, 2025 statement reads:

The Centre for Public Integrity has long advocated for reform of our political donations laws. We have fought for greater transparency via a reduced disclosure threshold and real-time disclosure, as well as a broader definition of what constitutes a donation. We have fought for solutions to the problem of undue influence in the form of donations and expenditure caps. We have also fought for fairness, because the advantages of major-party membership and incumbency are significant and need to be compensated for in any system capping donations and spending.

It is an affront to our democratic process that the Electoral Legislation Amendment – significant, complex legislation which concerns the very foundations of our democracy – is proceeding without proper parliamentary process and scrutiny. The Government’s guillotining of debate, and proceeding in the absence of a parliamentary inquiry or the advice of an independent expert panel, is of profound concern.

The Centre for Public Integrity Board

the Hon Anthony Whealy KC, Chair

the Hon Michael Barker KC

the Hon Margaret White AO

Professor Allan Fels AO

Professor Gabrielle Appleby

Professor Joo Cheong Tham

Geoffrey Watson SC

The deal was sealed on Tuesday February 11 when Special Minister of State Don Farrell had separate meetings on the final deal with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition leader Peter Dutton.

The government needed to get opposition backing to ensure the legislation’s passage before parliament rose this week. If the PM calls an April election this would be the last parliamentary sitting.

Labor wanted to pass the measures with the support of their 'opposite' government so the new regime would not be undone in the future.

The reforms are the most comprehensive changes to the electoral system in four decades. The government says they will stop big money coming to dominate politics. But they have been under attack from Independent MPs and other critics who say they favour the major parties and disadvantage new and small players.

The new regime will not come into operation until the next parliamentary term and so does not affect this election.

The changes include disclosure of donations in real time or near-real time, and a series of caps on spending, The cap on each candidate in an electorate would be $800,000, while a party’s national spending would also be capped. At the moment there are no spending caps.

The legislation increases public funding, that is; voters paying for elections, from under $3.50 per vote to about $5.

Farrell didn't proceed with a separate measure on 'truth in advertising' during elections, saying there was not enough support for it. 

As political advertising from or on behalf of both of the larger parties has already been appearing that is attacking Independents or Greens candidates, that are outright lies, it seems doubtful there will ever be a team-up to change that from the Labor-Liberal alliance that secured passage of the Electoral Reform Bill.

The Greens described the deal as “a fix”. “Labor and the Coalition are agreeing on rigging the system to lock out their competitors.”

Greens spokesperson on Democracy, Senator Larissa Waters said:

“Tonight, we’ve seen the major parties buddy up to rig the electoral system in their favour. After months of denying negotiations, it's clear they have been working together to prop up the two party system.

“What we have seen in the Senate tonight is an affront to democracy, debating a 400 page bill rushed through without an inquiry and with complex amendments only circulated moments before being voted upon. This is the worst process I’ve seen in my time in Parliament.

“Both Labor and Liberal saw their lowest votes ever at the last election. Instead of improving their policies, they’ve chosen to team up and cancel their competitors.

“I am outraged, but not shocked, to witness the two big parties team up on legislation that improves their election chances, and makes a mockery of our democracy.

“Labor’s dirty deal with the Opposition has increased secrecy over donations and raised donation caps; an act of self-interest to lock out anyone else trying to represent their community.

“From the outset, the lack of genuine engagement with the Greens and crossbench indicated the government was seeking a stitch-up with the LNP on these consequential reforms.

“The bill was supposed to cap donations from peak bodies like the Business Council and Minerals Council at $20,000, but now big mining companies could donate $250,000 each in membership fees, allowing them to spend up to $11.5 million on electoral campaigning. That doesn’t get big money out of politics, it just gives big corporations a back door.

“This deal is a complete joke—lobbyists run this place, and Ministers jump straight into industry jobs without any accountability. This bill does nothing to address that revolving door.

“The Greens will continue pushing for stronger transparency, truth in advertising, and getting big money out of politics.

“This is the dodgiest deal I’ve seen in my 13 years here. When the two major parties are falling in the polls, this is all they’ve got: policy to help each other, not the people.

“Every crossbencher in the Senate opposed this bill, what more evidence is needed that this is a major party stitch-up."

Independent MP Zoe Daniel, said the legislation “entrenches the dominance of the major parties and locks out independents and new competitors”.

She said it imposed “strict campaign spending caps on Independents while allowing major parties to exploit loopholes to pour millions into key electorates.

"Under the new rules, all an independent’s campaign materials – posters, ads, or billboards – would count towards the cap, while major party branding on billboards, leaflets and ads would not. This deliberate imbalance ensures that Labor and the Coalition maintain a financial stranglehold over elections,” Ms Daniel said.

On Wednesday night Liberal Senator Jane Hume announced her party had done a deal with the Albanese Labor Government on electoral laws – and some twelve hours later, it became law, having been rushed through both houses of Parliament.

The Australia Institute has also stated this is a 'stitch up' and Labor’s compromises with the Coalition have worsened the bill even further:

''Instead of a disclosure threshold of $1,000, which would have revealed cash-for-access payments from lobbyists and corporate interests, the threshold has been raised to $5,000. Since the Albanese Government normally charges between $1,500 and $5,000 for privileged access, expect to see a lot of $4,999 fundraisers in the future. A lobbyist would have to be a repeat customer to have their cash-for-access payments revealed under the higher threshold.'' Bill Browne, AI's  Director of the Democracy & Accountability Program stated in an analysis

''The Government’s rhetoric of keeping millionaire influence out of politics is looking thin with the increased donation cap of $50,000 (up from $20,000). Since the major parties have nine branches, and they can take four donations per donor every three years, that means a single person or company could give $1.8 million to a major party every election cycle.''

''A carve-out for peak bodies means the Business Council of Australia, the Minerals Council of Australia and other lobby groups for vested interests can take up to $250,000 from each member, five times the $50,000 that actual Australian voters are capped at.

''It has been a rushed, secretive and dismissive process to pass the laws through Parliament. Last night, the Senate was expected to debate the bill without even seeing what amendments Labor and Liberal had prepared. The biggest changes to election laws in 40 years should have faced proper scrutiny by a multi-party parliamentary inquiry.'' Mr. Browne said

His call that the 400 page documents should have been submitted to a parliamentary inquiry has been stated by many others.

The laws do not come into effect until the election after next, around 2028. That means there is still a chance for the next parliament to address the transparency gaps, major party loopholes and unfair treatment of independents and new entrants.

Independent for Warringah, Zali Stegall, stated; ''Instead of getting big money out of politics, the government has rammed through a 400-page bill that does the opposite involving:

- More taxpayer money for politicians – public funding per vote jumps from $3.50 to $5 

-  Bigger donations for big players – donation caps set at $50K, while peak bodies like the Minerals Council and gambling can funnel $250K per company, stacking the deck for big business

- Weaker transparency – planned donation disclosure threshold lowered to $1K, now increased to $5K

This is a stitch-up by the major parties to entrench their duopoly while shutting out independents and community voices.''

Mackellar MP Dr. Sophie Scamps said ''This isn’t just a threat to independent candidates. It‘s an attack on everyone in local communities who are tired of the same old political game.''

As polls are tipping a minority government as the outcome of the 2025 Federal Election, meaning either Labor or the Coalition will need to seek support from the crossbench to form government, the Labor-Liberal alliance may have shot themselves in the foot a few weeks too soon. 

Ms Steggall said the lack of negotiations on electoral reform had impacted her trust in the government.

“All I can say from this experience is I have no confidence in (Special Minister of State) Don Farrell and he has the approval of the Prime Minister, so that absolutely has an impact for me in terms of good faith negotiations,” she said.

Warringah MP Zali Steggall 'gate-crashed' Mr. Farrells' post-passing the legislation press conference to give voice to some of the concerns that have been raised by voters.

Reports by Others on this:

Parliament has passed landmark election donation laws. They may be a ‘stitch up’ but they also improve Australia’s democracy

Joo-Cheong Tham, The University of Melbourne

Federal parliament has passed the biggest changes to Australia’s electoral funding laws in decades.

The Albanese government’s Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill 2024 cleared the Senate on Wednesday night after just two hours of debate on amendments agreed to earlier by the Coalition. In blatant disregard for democracy, the government refused to refer the bill to a parliamentary committee for proper scrutiny.

The amendments fail to address numerous deficiencies in the original bill that was introduced last November. Transparency has been wound back and hollow contribution caps have been locked in.

In significant respects, however, the package is an improvement on the status quo, which has seen unrestricted donations and spending flourish. So, too, secrecy.

We need to penetrate the sound and fury of partisanship and assess the substance of these laws. This will yield a much more nuanced picture than conveyed by cross bench claims of a major party stitch up.

Some improvement to transparency

The government originally proposed lowering the disclosure threshold for donations from $16,000 to $1,000. The revised bill settles on a new threshold of $5,000.

The amendments fail to plug a loophole that allows a donor to give separately to all of the branches attached to a political party if each individual contribution is just under the threshold. For example, a donor could spread almost $45,000 to the nine state and federal branches of the ALP without being required to declare the amounts.

But the new laws will usher in near-real time disclosure and substantially reduce “dark money”, a seismic shift from the secrecy and lack of timeliness in the regime it replaces.

Hollow donation caps

Under the reforms, a series of contribution caps have been introduced to curb the influence of big money in politics.

In my assessment of the original bill, I highlighted how the caps would prevent multi-million dollar contributions from cashed-up individuals.

The amendments go further by closing a number of sizeable loopholes. Self financing candidates, such as Clive Palmer and Malcolm Turnbull will be subject to the contribution caps. The current exclusions for membership and affiliation fees to associated entities – “disguised donations” – will also be caught by the caps.

But any positives are emphatically outweighed by the “annual gift cap” more than doubling to $50,000. The same “spreading” loophole that applies to the disclosure obligations would allow a donor to to give just shy of this amount to each of a party’s state and federal branches across the country. The major parties could reap up to almost $450,000 per annum from a single donor.

And the “overall gift cap” on total donations made to political parties and candidates is a generous $1.6 million, which means large contributions will still be permissible under the new framework.

The government has also failed to remove the patently unfair provisions relating to “nominated entities”, which are likely to be used by the major parties as investment vehicles.

As the Victorian Electoral Review Expert Panel has rightly noted, such entities:

provide some (parties) with significantly more funds, creating a risk that those (parties) drown out other voices.

Election spending contained and fairer

The spending caps in the new finance laws are fundamentally unaltered by the government’s amendments.

The $800,000 per electorate limit, and $90 million per party nationally, will contain the “arms race” that has necessitated “big money” fundraising and fuelled unfair contests.

However, the limits are set too high and will benefit the established parties due to the narrow scope of the spending caps in individual electorates. This means the major parties will be able to shift funding to must-win seats without being caught by the electorate caps.

This shortcoming has been seized upon as clear evidence that Labor and the Liberals are seeking to kneecap Teal election campaigns. While having some force, these criticisms should be viewed in the context of the current situation where the major parties have an unfettered ability to direct spending to marginal seats, a situation which the Teals are ironically defending with their opposition to spending caps.

The importance of public funding

The new regime includes a substantial jump in public funding from $3.50 to $5 per vote.

Crossbenchers, such as Kate Chaney, are opposed, to the increase, saying it will entrench the might of the majors while making it harder for new independents:

The effect of increasing public funding is that political parties don’t have to fundraise because they’ve got their war chests. But any challengers do have to fundraise.

While there is a clear risk of unfairness, the crossbench position throws the baby out with the bathwater. It romanticises the role of private funding, skating over the risks of corruption and undue influence via large donations.

The public funding of political parties and candidates is warranted. But there should be a conversation about the design and scope of taxpayer support.

The political finance laws could be made considerably fairer by fixing the structural bias that favours incumbents, including teal MPs. And they don’t need to be as generous given the large flows of private funding that will continue under the shallow contribution caps.

Unfinished business

Bad processes tend to make bad laws. The government’s actions have cast a pall of illegitimacy over its political finance regime. The new framework is unfair and ineffectual in significant ways and yet democracy enhancing in others.

We are all trustees of democracy, with an obligation to protect and deepen democratic practices. An urgent task in that continuing struggle is to protect the strengths of these laws while jettisoning the elements that are egregiously bad.The Conversation

Joo-Cheong Tham, Professor, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sweeping reform of the electoral laws puts democracy at risk. They shouldn’t be changed on a whim

Joshua Black, Australian National University

The Albanese government is trying once more to legislate wide-ranging changes to the way federal elections are administered.

The 200-page Electoral Reform Bill, if passed, would transform the electoral donation rules by imposing donation and spending caps, increasing public funding, and improving transparency.

As noble as it sounds, the bill in its current form would undermine Australian democracy by favouring established parties over independent candidates and other new players.

Competitive disadvantage

The proposed donation caps are a case in point.

Donors could give A$20,000 per year, per recipient, to a branch of a party or candidate for electioneering purposes. In practice, that means donors could give no more than $20,000 per year to an independent but could contribute $180,000 to the Labor Party via each of its state and federal branches, or $160,000 to the Liberal Party (which has one less branch than the ALP).

The donation cap would reset annually and after each federal election, allowing a single donor to give $720,000 to the Labor Party in one election cycle or $640,000 to the Liberals, but no more than $20,000 to an independent who declares their candidacy in the year of an election.

Avoiding the American road

There are welcome components in the bill. Faster disclosure and lower donation thresholds would make the system more transparent. Given the large amount of undisclosed funding – “dark money ” – currently propping up political parties, this would be a significant improvement.

But democracy is not cheap.

Last year, the Financial Times reported Donald Trump and Kamala Harris spent a combined US$3.5 billion (A$5.6 billion) on their presidential races. This kind of money helps to sustain an American two-party system largely immune to challengers.

Australian campaigns look nothing like this, but there has been increased interest in the money spent in particular seats in recent years.

Former Labor minister Kim Carr revealed in his recent book Labor spent $1 million to defeat the Greens in the Melbourne electorate of Batman in 2018, while the LNP reportedly spent $600,000 campaigning to retain the affluent electorate of Fadden in 2023.

The bill before Parliament would cap election spending at $800,000 in each lower house seat. But the major parties could promote their generic party brand or a frontbench MP (in a seat other than their own) without affecting their capped spending.

These unfair discrepancies would reward the major parties while kneecapping independents whose first hurdle is to get their name “out there”.

Haunted by billionaires

The government argues its bill limits the influence of “big money” in politics, namely mining boss Clive Palmer, who spent $117 million at the last election.

For the Coalition, it is the community independents and their Climate 200 supporters who represent a kind of money “without precedent in the Australian political system” according to departing MP Paul Fletcher.

Rather than getting big money out of politics, this bill would make the major parties’ own funding pipelines the only money that matters.

The bill recognises “nominated entities” whose payments to associated political parties would not be limited by donation caps. Independents would not have this privilege.

Meanwhile, the long delay before the commencement of the bill in 2026 would give wealthy donors time to get their ducks in order. They could amass their own war chests before the new laws are due to come in to force and then register them as nominated entities at a later date.

Who pays? The taxpayer, of course!

Parties and candidates with more than 4% of the primary vote currently receive public election funding. The Hawke government introduced this measure as a “small insurance” against corruption.

The bill would raise the return to $5 per vote, which would mean an extra $41 million in funding, on top of the $71 million handed over after the 2022 election. Most of this money would go to the major parties.

The windfall would come with no extra guardrails or guidelines about how those funds could be spent. There are no laws to guarantee truth in political advertising at the federal level. Voters may well be paying for more political advertising that lies to them.

Closed consultations

Labor’s current strategy is to seek Coalition support for these changes to the rules of democracy.

Special Minister of State Don Farrell claims to have consulted widely on the design of the bill, but that came as news to independents David Pocock and Kate Chaney when asked about it last week.

The government’s haste and secrecy suggest it wants neither the bill nor its motives closely scrutinised.

Australians care about the quality of their democracy. Polling research by the Australia Institute last November showed four in five Australians expect electoral changes to be reviewed by a multi-party committee.

That’s what is needed for this bill. To do otherwise would threaten the integrity of Australian elections – or invite a High Court challenge that may overturn the entire system if the court rules freedom of political expression is at stake.

Democracy matters. The rules must not be changed on a whim.The Conversation

Joshua Black, Visitor, School of History, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Misleading and false election ads are legal in Australia. We need national truth in political advertising laws

An ad falsely depicting independent candidate Alex Dyson as a Greens member. ABC News/Supplied
Yee-Fui Ng, Monash University

The highly pertinent case of a little-known independent candidate in the Victorian seat of Wannon has exposed a gaping hole in Australia’s electoral laws, which allow for misleading political advertisements in the lead-up to an election campaign. It’s all entirely legal and is already being exploited to try to shape the outcome of the coming federal election.

Conservative activist group Advance Australia has widely distributed digitally altered flyers attacking independent Alex Dyson, who is challenging senior frontbencher Dan Tehan.

It’s part of a campaign to damage Dyson’s electoral prospects after he helped slash the Liberal Party’s margin in the seat at the last election to less than 4%.

The material depicts Dyson ripping open his shirt in a “Superman” pose, to reveal a t-shirt bearing the official Greens party logo.

Dyson is not a Greens candidate. So why are the ads permissible? And what does it tell us about the urgent need for truth in political advertising laws to prohibit material that lies to voters?

Why are misleading ads allowed?

Section 329 of the Electoral Act prohibits the publication of material likely to mislead or deceive an elector in casting their vote.

But in a narrow interpretation by the Electoral Commission, the ban only applies after an election has been called by the prime minister.

That means the Wannon ad, and maybe countless others like them from across the political spectrum, could be distributed for months without repercussion.

Advance Australia has form when it comes to misleading material.

At the 2022 election, it displayed placards that falsely depicted independents David Pocock and Zali Steggall as Greens candidates.

In that case, the Electoral Commission ruled that because the corflutes were deployed during the campaign proper, they breached the electoral laws.

It is absurd and dangerous to democracy to have a law that only bans ads that mislead voters in casting their vote during the official election period, and allows them to proliferate unchecked at other times.

It should not be permissible to lie to voters just because of a technicality. In an era of permanent campaigning, voters can be influenced by political messages received well before a campaign officially starts.

Furthermore, there is little justification for allowing political parties to mislead while banning corporations from engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct. If consumers and shareholders are protected from fraudulent and dishonest claims, why not electors, who have the solemn task of deciding who runs the country?

How can the electoral laws be fixed?

There are available remedies to the problem, starting with reforming the Electoral Act. It should be clearly specified that the provision on misleading electors applies to any material calculated to affect the result of an election, regardless of when it is distributed.

Broader truth in political advertising provisions should also be introduced. This would cover a wider range of factually misleading ads beyond the existing narrow ambit of misleading a voter in the casting of their vote.

If the Electoral Commission determines the material is false or misleading to a material extent, it would order a withdrawal and a retraction.

Importantly, the laws would be confined to false or misleading statements of fact. Parties and other political players would still be free to express their opinions. Freedom of speech would not be impeded.

Parliamentary stalemate

The Albanese government has taken tentative steps to fix the problem. Truth in advertising laws introduced to parliament last year would have forced Advance Australia to retract and correct its dishonest flyers in Wannon.

However, the bill was pulled due to a lack of support.

Any doubters on the opposition benches should look to the experience in South Australia and the ACT, which have both enacted truth in advertising laws.

My research has shown these laws operate effectively in both jurisdictions.

What’s at stake

Spreading political lies has the potential to cause harm on multiple fronts.

The first is the damage to the candidate or political party in terms of their reputation and electoral prospects.

The second danger is to the integrity of the electoral process if lies cause people to switch their votes to such an extent that it changes election outcomes.

The spread of disinformation has become prevalent in an era of “fake news” and “alternative facts”, exacerbated by the rise of social media.

In 2024, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report ranked misinformation and disinformation as the most severe risk facing the world over the next two years.

False information can alter elections, affect voting participation, silence minorities, and polarise the electorate. It is time to reform our electoral laws to mitigate the significant dangers to our democratic system.The Conversation

Yee-Fui Ng, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.