2018-11-29
The ACT Greens will today welcome an electoral reform bill in the Assembly, as they seek to reverse a “troubling” rollback in electorate donations reform.
Integrity, accountability and openness in politics are vital to a healthy democracy. The Greens have a long history of campaigning for electorate donations reform to ensure that there is a level playing field across parties and candidates.
2012-now: six years on, reversing the rollback
In the 2012 election year, led by the ACT Greens in the Assembly, the ACT had robust donation laws restricting donations to ACT political parties to individuals on the ACT electoral role.
In 2014, both major parties voted to reverse these reforms, allowing corporations and other vested interests to invest significant sums in vested political influence. Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury was the only member of the Assembly to vote against these changes.
Soon after, a previous $10,000 cap on donations was wound back, with public funding increasing from $2 per vote to $8. Speaking at the time, Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury labelled the moves as “an attack on democracy”.
When the public funding for elections was significantly increased through payment for votes, this negated the need for any corporate donations at all. The level of funding ensures that parties are able to fund election campaigns and avoid the need for the private sector contribution at all.
“Elections shouldn’t be fundraisers for political parties,” Greens spokesperson for Electoral Reform Caroline Le Couteur said today. “What we now have is public funding through votes and administrative funding, as well as donations.”
At the last election, the ACT Greens vowed to reverse the 2012 rollback of the ACT’s donations laws that had previously limited political donations to individuals who are registered to vote in the ACT.
In November 2017, in a dissenting report to the Election Committee Inquiry, Ms Le Couteur called for:
- The 2012 rollback of the ACT’s donation laws to be reversed, limiting political donations to individuals who are registered to vote in the ACT—realising an ACT Greens’ election commitment;
- The $10,000 annual cap on donations to political parties to be reinstated;
- Electoral expenditure caps for independent candidates to be increased to $60,000;
- Administrative funding for parties to be capped for five MLAs;
- Public funding to be available for parties or candidates that receive 1% of the vote rather than 4% on a reimbursement basis.
Earlier this year, questions were again raised as to the transparency of donations to the two major parties. The annual returns of the ACT’s major political parties see the Canberra Liberals as a party for the big end of town that continues to receive thousands of dollars of donations from not just property developers, but many major corporations – donations that total over $100,000 in 2017-18 alone.
“Since the major parties voted as a bloc to roll back these reforms, it’s now impossible to tell which funds were used for ACT electioneering, or for Federal election purposes,” Ms Le Couteur said.
“Canberrans deserve to know where this money comes from, and where it’s going.”
The Greens today also reaffirmed their calls made prior to the 2016 election for both the Liberal and Labor parties to support a ban on all pokie donations.
In 2017-2018, ACT Labor received $33,241 worth of free room hire at pokies venues: the Gungahlin Lakes club, the Canberra Labor Club, the Dickson Tradies, the Statesman Hotel, and the Burns Club in Kambah.
"The Greens will always put people before pokies. That means keeping profits from destructive poker machines out of political parties and out of our democratic processes,” Ms Le Couteur said.