Page 29 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 2019
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separate bank account for ACT elections, and this requirement was also removed in the last Assembly.
As well as funding issues, we are trying to improve our electoral process by amending the current 100-metre rule for canvassing to permit canvassing within six metres of a polling place, in line with the practice for federal elections, and introducing a higher expenditure cap for non-party candidates, that is, $60,000 versus $42,000. This recognises the lack of economies of scale available to independents in campaigns.
The Greens believe very strongly that democracy should be powered by people, not corporations, and that our electoral laws should be structured to protect this basic premise. The government’s bill will restrict political donations from property developers to MLAs and political parties in the ACT. This is an item in the parliamentary agreement between ACT Labor and the ACT Greens. We, of course, are very pleased to see these amendments and we do support the bill. Our amendments simply build on the attorney’s amendments and provide additional protection against undue influence.
I would like to spend a moment discussing why we think it is important to have political donation reform. It is worth noting that the reason people and corporations make political donations generally falls into two camps, and they are not mutually exclusive. Firstly, you support a politician, a party or a cause that an individual or a company believes in. Secondly, of course, it is about buying access and influence.
If the second issue were not important, it would seem very unlikely that mining companies, property developers and big banks would bother donating so much of their shareholders’ money to political parties. In my opinion, and in the Greens’ opinion, political donations, as I said, should be limited to people on the electoral roll. Unfortunately, the High Court has taken a different view in its interpretation of the Constitution. In 1992 two cases established the concept of implied freedom of political communication. Corporations, it seems, have a right to political communication, including through political donations.
As constitutional lawyer and academic Professor George Williams wrote in his 2017 submission to the Senate committee into the political influence of donations:
Recent High Court decisions establish clear parameters for … reform. In particular, the decision in Unions NSW v New South Wales suggests that any attempt to limit donations to individuals on the electoral roll has an unacceptable risk of being struck down. On the other hand, the more recent decision in McCloy establishes that caps may be imposed generally upon donations, and that categories of donors may be banned where they give rise to an unacceptable risk to the political process.
The Professor of Law from the University of Queensland, Graeme Orr, concurred, noting that the McCloy case:
… unequivocally confirmed … that political donations may be limited—both in their size, and even in who can make them. In doing so, the judges showed signs of a welcome embrace of political equality to temper the court’s earlier fascination with political freedom.
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