The federal government will soon be left with the weakest donation laws in the country after Tasmania finally pledged partial reforms to its much-criticised system.
Tasmanian Liberal premier Peter Gutwein promised changes to the state’s flawed donation system on Tuesday, three years after it hid the contributions powerful gambling interests made to his party during the controversial 2018 election.
The reforms are expected to require donations of at least $5,000 to be disclosed, a significant improvement on the prior threshold of $14,300 for Tasmania’s major political parties, which was enforced through the federal disclosure system.
That leaves the federal government as the only jurisdiction in the country still persisting with the $14,300 disclosure threshold, one that experts have long criticised as being too high.
The federal threshold is set to continue increasing due to Howard-era indexation, and still allows donors to split up donations into smaller amounts to avoid disclosing them to the public.
“The federal government scheme would now be the weakest in the country, with all the states and territories leading it,” the Grattan Institute integrity expert, Kate Griffiths, told the Guardian.
Gutwein’s announcement comes after a review of the state’s Electoral Act, which made 11 recommendations, including dropping the threshold to between $1,000 and $5,000, and introducing six-monthly disclosures, instead of annual.
Disclosures will need to be made more rapidly during elections. Large foreign and anonymous donations will also be banned. The government said it supported all the recommendations in principle.
The lack of donation transparency became a major issue in Tasmania’s 2018 state election, which turned largely on Labor’s promises of gambling and pokies reform.
The Liberal party received huge donations from vested gambling interests, but the public were left oblivious to the fact until well after the election.
Even with the proposed reforms, Tasmania would remain well behind other states, like Queensland, which has a real-time donations disclosure system and a disclosure threshold of $1,000.
But Anthony Whealy, chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, said the Tasmanian reforms begged questions of the Coalition’s continued inaction.
“Why is the federal government the only government that is lagging behind the rest?”
“The Coalition is against openness and transparency. This breeds distrust in our democratic processes.”
Gutwein has said the system will be changed “as soon as practical” prior to the next election, which is expected before early next year.
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie said he was “deeply disappointed” in the flimsy response to the Electoral Act review. He described the state government’s commitment as vague and in-principle only.
“The fact is that Tasmania needs a $1,000 disclosure threshold, real-time reporting of donations, a cap on the gross amount of donations from any one source during an electoral cycle, and a definition of ‘donation’ that includes any money or activity that materially benefits any party or candidate,” he said.
