ABC News Analysis-Tasmanians going to vote on March 23 clueless about donations to the major parties

Adam Langenberg | ABC NEWS Analysis – Digital Online | 6 March 2024

Tasmanians going to vote at March 23 state election clueless about who has donated to the major parties

Tasmanians will go to the polls in March in the dark about who donated to the major political parties, despite reforms passing state parliament.

Laws requiring political parties to reveal the source of donations exceeding $5,000 passed last year, but weren’t in place before Premier Jeremy Rockliff called an early election.

Without the legislation in place, Tasmania goes to the election with the weakest political donation rules in the country.

The state does not have its own set of laws in place, meaning requirements default to Commonwealth limits of $16,300.

Independent upper house MP Meg Webb, who campaigned for the source of all donations of $1,000 or more to be disclosed, said it was “an indictment” on the Liberal Party that Tasmanians were heading to an election with no state donation laws in place, six years after it was promised by former premier Will Hodgman.

“Hidden donations erode democracy; voters should be able to see where significant donations have been made and make their own judgements on who may be influencing the policies and funding promises made during the election,” she said.

“Another state election without Tasmanian laws in place means that not only will voters have no idea when they go to the ballot box who may have bought influence through donations, they will have to wait almost a year to find out, when federal donations disclosures are reported in February 2025.”

The major political parties have also promised less transparency around donations than they did during the 2021 election campaign, when then-Liberal leader Peter Gutwein promised to disclose donations of more than $2,000 within two days of receiving them, with Labor following suit.

In the end, both major parties only disclosed one donation during the election period, the Liberals a $50,000 donation from Melbourne businessman Richard Smith, and Labor a $10,000 donation from shipping company SeaRoad Holdings.

More than 18 months after the election it was revealed the Liberals did not disclose almost $70,000 worth of donations over $5,000 it received before the election.

Mr Rockliff has refused to repeat that commitment at this election, meaning the state not only has the weakest laws in the country, but less
transparency than last time.

“Tasmanians would expect us to comply with the existing law, that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.

Labor leader Rebecca White has also refused to bring back the rules the party had in place three years ago.

“We’re operating on the same level playing field as the other major party that can form government and we’re complying with the law,” she said.

“I think it’s regrettable that it’s taken such a long time for the parliament to see legislation from this Liberal government about donation disclosure reform … and it’s a shame we don’t have reform in this area because Tasmanians have been promised it for years.”

Donations for this financial year will be released in February 2025, meaning Tasmanians won’t know who donated to the major parties until almost a year after they go to the polls.

Meg Webb says the lack of movement on the issue “shows both major parties have to be dragged kicking and screaming to transparent accountability”.

Lack of transparency shows ‘disdain’ for voters

Ms Webb said the major parties had demonstrated “disdain” for Tasmanian voters by not committing to voluntary disclosures in line with the legislation passed last year.

“It shows that both major parties have to be dragged kicking and screaming to transparent accountability which is completely at odds with what the Tasmanian community want from their political representatives,” she said.

“Instead of trying to bribe voters with scattergun handouts and promises, all parties and candidates should be showing they deserve votes based on their commitment to integrity. They need to walk the talk and voluntary disclosure of donations would be the number one way to demonstrate this.”

The Tasmanian Greens are the only major party to declare its donations in relative real-time, publishing a list of donors who give $1,500 or more to the party in a given financial year.

It has disclosed $89,000 of donations in the 2023-24 financial year, including $6,500 contributions from incumbent MPs Rosalie Woodruff and Vica Bayley.

Its website listing the donations was last updated on February 29.

Dr Woodruff said there was a “shameful” lack of transparency about donations during this election campaign.

“The Liberal and Labor politicians are addicted to secrecy, they’re addicted to hiding who’s really lobbying them to get a special deal,” she said.

“So we’ll never know whether the gun lobby, whether the gambling industry, whether the industrial salmon industry have stitched up deals with the Liberal and Labor politicians.”

TEC needs a year to get system in place

Electoral Commissioner Andrew Hawkey said it was not clear when the new political donations scheme would be in place, as the legislation had not been officially proclaimed before the election was called.

Once that happens, it’ll take about 12 months for the electoral commission to create the scheme.

“Firstly the skill base that is required to run a funding and disclosure scheme and the auditing around that, we need to recruit people with new skills that are different to the electoral commission normal skills,” he said.

“We then need to establish how the schemes will work, we then need to develop training material so we can connect with the participants and give them some training before the scheme actually commences.

“There’s quite a bit of work and information to be shared and education to be undertaken with the political participants.”

After years of supporting a $1,000 limit, Labor supported the government’s legislation where Tasmania would have the second highest limit in the country in parliament last year.

But it has promised to put forward legislation lowering the limit following the election.

Gun controversy ‘demonstrates need for reform’

Transparency campaigner and anti-gun lobbyist Roland Browne said both major parties promising to overturn a crackdown on the owners of antique guns showed the need for increased information during election campaigns.

In January, Police Commissioner Donna Adams announced that owners of pre-1900 firearms would be subject to licensing, registration and storage requirements.

But Labor and the Liberals have both committed to overturning that decision, without consulting with Commissioner Adams.

“Firstly we don’t know how many antique firearm owners there are in Tasmania but let’s say there’s 500. How do 500 antique firearm owners get that sort of clout to swing a policy to humiliate the police commissioner,” Mr Browne said.

“And how much money did they donate to achieve this?”

A Liberal Party spokesperson said all donations “would be disclosed as per legislative requirements”.

“Our policies are not influenced by anything except for serving the best interests of Tasmanians,” they said.

Mr Rockliff said last week that the party was listening to Tasmanians, and donations were a matter for the Liberal Party.

But he stressed his party’s policy change was not a result of political pressure from gun owners.

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