Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

We urgently need to reform the transparency of election funding. ANU's 2022 Australian Election Study shows that more than half of the country believes that government is run for a few big interests. Australians know that donations have the potential to exert influence on politics, so before they vote they need to know who's funding their candidates so they can make up their own minds about how that might influence policy positions on, for example, gambling, alcohol or climate action. I voluntarily declared all cash donations in real time during my campaign so anyone could go to my website and see my donors before deciding how to vote. It's really not hard to do.

Last Wednesday, the AEC released the parties' financial data for the May 2022 election. Voters had to wait until eight months after casting their votes before getting any information about the funding of party campaigns and, even now, nearly $100 million received by the major parties remains undisclosed. We have no idea where that money came from. Currently, someone could donate about $1.3 million to the coalition without disclosure by making donations below the $15,000 threshold to 83 different funding entities. No-one would know except the party, which may feel it owed them one. To rebuild trust in our democracy we need to lower the disclosure threshold, require real-time disclosure and close the loopholes.

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