Page 4155 - Week 13 - Thursday, 27 November 2014
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amendments to the Electoral Act to consider a number of matters related to electoral reform in the ACT.
In June this year the committee released its report entitled Voting matters, including 18 recommendations. In September this year the ACT Electoral Commission also provided its report, Proposed changes to the Electoral Act 1992, which responded to voting matters and made further recommendations around campaign finance. This afternoon I will be tabling the government response to both of these reports.
This bill, therefore, implements the legislative aspects of the government responses to these important reports. The government’s responses are underpinned by a commitment to establishing a strong regulatory framework. This framework supports transparent and accountable electoral expenditure and minimises the incentive and opportunity for corruption and undue influence. It achieves this through a strong reporting framework coupled with an increase in public expenditure and the retention of expenditure caps.
I will outline the major amendments contained in this bill. As recommended by the select committee, the bill amends the expenditure cap on candidates so that it is $40,000 per individual candidate, with party expenditure capped at $1 million. Penalties will continue to apply for electoral expenditure exceeding these limits. The $40,000 expenditure cap will also apply to third-party campaigners and associated entities. With the number of members in the Assembly increasing to 25 at the next ACT election, these caps will prevent a significant increase in campaign expenditure by the larger parties and assist in preventing disadvantage to independent candidates.
On the other side of the balance sheet, the bill removes restrictions on how much can be donated to a party or candidate. Removing this restriction does not lessen the reporting requirements around donations. These still remain to ensure transparency and accountability.
By abolishing the $10,000 limit on donations, the government is removing an unintended incentive for donors to circumvent the electoral funding laws and therefore reduce transparency. We have seen experience of this in New South Wales. While the donation limit is not kept, the usefulness of excessive donations is severely limited by the reduction in the cap on electoral expenditure. Removing the donation limit removes sections 205I and 205J from the act, including section 205I(4) which is likely to be invalid. Section 205I(4) includes gifts from donors outside the ACT unless paid into a federal account.
In 2013, the High Court considered a similar New South Wales provision and found it invalid on the basis that it impermissibly burdened the implied freedom of political communication.
The High Court decision in Unions New South Wales v New South Wales also cast some doubt on the validity of the provisions contained in sections 205F, 205G and 205H relating to aggregated electoral expenditure. This bill therefore amends sections 205F and 205G to remove the aggregation provisions and delete section 205H which aggregates the expenditure of a third-party campaigner acting in concert with others.
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