Libs wary of booby traps in campaign finance reform proposals
The Liberal Party is willing to negotiate the introduction of caps on donations and campaign spending, but has warned the rules must not be skewed to enable Labor to use union money to gain an unfair advantage.
The Coalition is unlikely, however, to support moves to drop the declarable donation threshold from the current $14,500 to $1000, fearing it could lead to small business donors being “bullied” by unions.
Don Farrell is considering caps on both donations and spending. Alex Ellinghausen
The Australian Financial Review reported on Thursday that Special Minister of State Don Farrell is planing to legislate either later this year or early next year to overhaul campaign finance rules.
As well as aiming to introduce more transparency into political donations, the government wants to stop the likes of billionaire Clive Palmer spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to shape election outcomes.
There is also a view that the ability at the last election of teal independents to spend more than $2 million on a single seat poses an existential threat to the major parties who have to spread their resources across 150 seats.
It is understood that Senator Farrell is contemplating both a limit on how much a party can spend in a single seat, and a limit on how much an individual can donate.
In 2021-22, a period which encompassed the May 2022 federal election, Mr Palmer was the biggest individual donor with his company Mineralogy giving almost $117 million to his United Australia Party.
Visy boss Anthony Pratt gave Labor $1.5 million and $1.7 million to the Liberal Party and the Nationals.
Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar donated $1.5 million to Climate 200, the driving force behind the teals, while his business partner Mike Cannon-Brookes donated $1.1 million to a charity he founded called Boundless Earth Limited, which also helped fund teal campaigns.
The Liberal Party relies almost exclusively on donations from businesses and individuals whereas Labor also receives affiliation fees and donations from unions. In 2021-22, state and federal Labor received $16.7 million from unions.
The Liberals say they will be wary of any proposal which enables Labor to receive unlimited money from unions while other donations are capped, a position the party first made clear to the parliamentary committee which examined campaign finance reforms after the last election.
“The Liberal Party strongly believes that any changes must ensure that there is a level playing field for political participants,” it said in its submission.
“The experience in other Australian jurisdictions has shown that while expenditure caps may limit campaign spending of the major parties, multiple trade unions will spend to the maximum amount allowed under a cap – delivering a massively unfair outcome in favour of the Labor Party.”
“Any attempt by the Government to restrict campaign expenditure by parties but not for third-party campaigners (including unions affiliated with the ALP) should be seen for what it is – an attempt to rig the system in Labor’s favour.”
It also notes Labor did not seek a mandate at the last election to change the rules.
The teals believe the imposition of caps is designed to limit their ability to grow as a force and, instead, to preserve the two-party system.
On Tuesday this week, Senator Farrell met the teals in his office after Question Time. They mainly discussed lowering the disclosure threshold to $1000 and introducing real-time disclosure.
The Liberals are also wary of this.
“A lower threshold and ‘real-time’ disclosure may lead to greater harassment and bullying of individuals and small businesses that wish to participate in our electoral process by supporting a candidate or political party,” the Party said.
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