Page 2143 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
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In 2012 the Assembly amended the electoral bill to establish a campaign expenditure cap. That means that there is a limit on how much a party can spend, which both reduces waste and reduces the chance of an ACT version of Clive Palmer attempting to buy an ACT election. This cap is $42,750 per candidate. or parties that field the full 25 candidates, it is $1,068,750.
If you are running as part of a party, there are economies of scale such as one ad for the radio, one ad for TV, one ad in the Canberra Times et cetera, so it seems only fair to allow non-party candidates to have a higher cap because they have none of those economies. This amendment will split the expenditure cap between party candidates, where it will remain at the current level, and non-party candidates, whose expenditure cap would increase to $60,000 if this amendment is passed.
MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for the Arts, Creative Industries and Cultural Events, Minister for Building Quality Improvement, Minister for Business and Regulatory Services and Minister for Seniors and Veterans) (6.08): The government will not be supporting this amendment. We believe that consistency is an important element of electoral funding laws. This amendment discriminates between party and non-party candidates. It would grant non-party candidates a higher electoral cap. We believe that there is a fundamental issue of fairness there, and believe that it is important for all candidates to have the same funding cap regardless of whether they choose to run in a party or outside a party.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (6.08): The opposition does not support this amendment. We believe that the same cap provides equality for all during elections.
Amendment negatived.
Proposed new clause 8A negatived.
Proposed new clause 8B.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (6.09): I move amendment No 4 circulated in my name, which inserts a new clause 8B [see schedule 5 at page 2165]. I suspect that most members of the public would be surprised to find that the ACT government pays an amount of $23,126.24 a year per MLA to the MLA’s party for administrative expenses. The Greens get $46,000, the Liberals $254,000, and the Labor Party $277,000 a year for the hassle to have MLAs in the Assembly. I appreciate that it does take some administrative effort to fulfil all the legislative requirements for reporting et cetera. I really cannot see that it actually takes in the order of a quarter of a million dollars a year for each of the bigger parties.
I am proposing that we reduce this to a maximum payment equivalent to five MLAs. I must admit that I do not expect to find the other parties supporting that. Another way of doing it, a more complicated way, would be to just have a diminishing amount for additional MLAs. I suspect this will not be supported.
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