A parliamentary report expected to recommend imposing a ban on foreign donations to Australian political parties, associated entities and activist groups has been pushed back a week, in an effort to see whether the major parties can come to terms.
The joint parliamentary committee on electoral matters has been given the task of recommending changes to to the donations and disclosure regime, and was expected to produce a report on foreign donations on Friday.
But the special minister of state, Scott Ryan, confirmed late on Wednesday the committee had sought an extension of time to complete its work. The committee will now report on 10 March.
There has been an effort in recent weeks to see if there can be convergence on the question of foreign donations, including applying a ban to campaign and activist groups like GetUp, as well as to political parties.
Bruised by coordinated campaigns from progressive activist groups against the Coalition in marginal seats during the 2016 election, campaigns that supplemented a massive field operation from the ALP and trade unions – the government has signalled on several occasions it won’t countenance reform of the donations and disclosure regime that applies only to political parties.
The government has said it wants activist groups in the mix, given they also campaign during elections.
Labor has signalled it is prepared to support a change that would see a foreign donations ban applied to activist groups as well as political parties, but only if the ban begins and ends with foreign sourced finance, and does not extend to curbs on activism during election campaigns.
The Liberal party’s federal director, Tony Nutt, used a recent appearance before the committee to address Labor’s concerns about curbing activism directly.
Nutt noted that activist groups and unions were “legitimate contributors” to political debates and he stressed the desirability of cross-party cooperation on electoral reform.
Political sources taking a close interest in the outcome of the committee’s deliberations think Nutt’s comments were an effort to walk back a more strident statement by Malcolm Turnbull in February, when he said “Australians expect us to ensure that only Australians and Australian businesses can seek to influence Australian elections”.
Labor’s assistant national secretary, Paul Erickson, has told the committee Labor accepts the principle of a level playing field between political and non-political actors in a democratic process – but he also noted that political parties, associated entities and other bodies running campaigns had different rights and responsibilities.
One senior Labor figure put the issue this way: “It depends what the Liberals are looking at. Banning donations is one thing, but banning electioneering is something else – and how do you define electioneering? Is campaigning against the Adani coalmine electioneering or is it activism?”
If the major parties can’t come to terms, and the government wants to pursue its own agenda on donations and the regulation of activist groups, it would have the option of trying to introduce reforms with the support of the Senate crossbench.
