Doubts over donations reform date

Judy Augustine | Mercury | 3 February 2022

PREMIER Peter Gutwein has been unable to confirm whether Tasmania’s electoral donation reforms will be in place by the start of the next financial year, promising a Bill will be introduced to parliament in the first half of the year.

On Tuesday, Upper House MP Meg Webb called for legislation to be prioritised after the Australian Electoral Commission made public how much Tasmania’s major parties had received in the 2020-21 financial year.

It was revealed the Tasmanian division of the Liberal Party received $3.4m in donations, but only disclosed $260,000, while Tasmanian Labor disclosed $180,160 of the $1.17m it received and the Tasmanian Greens received $877,047, disclosing $219,613.

Parties are currently only required to disclose donations over $14,300, but under proposed new laws, that would drop to $5000.

But there’s uncertainty around exactly when the bill will go before parliament.

“It will certainly be introduced this year, and it will be my expectation it will be introduced in the first half of the year,” Mr Gutwein said.

Greens Leader Cassy O’Connor accused the government of stalling.

“It’s completely unsurprising the Liberals continue to drag their heels on electoral reform,” Ms O’Connor said.

“We saw in the AEC returns just this week that they didn’t declare the source of more than $3m in donations.

“They’ve resisted the need for change because they benefit most from the status quo.” Ms O’Connor said Tasmania’s laws would still be the weakest in the country, with the disclosure threshold in NSW and Victoria of $1000.

“Big mining, gambling, developers and polluting companies will still be able to make political donations, and there’ll still be a democracy-damaging lack of transparency about the dark money pouring in to the major parties from vested interests,” Ms O’Connor said.

Mr Gutwein said Tasmania’s threshold would be slightly below that of South Australia.

“In terms of disclosure of donations, it’s important, you’ve got to manage public funding with that,” he said.

“The lower you take with that the disclosure threshold, then there is an argument for a higher level of public funding.

“We are a small jurisdiction and we will have a relatively high level of public funding.”

See Meg’s media release. 

See more of Meg’s recent media.