Donations law blast

Opponents attack Government over inaction on transparency

THE State Government’s continuing inaction on increasing the transparency of political donations has drawn sharp criticism from opposition parties.

The first round of reforms – including the reversal of a ban on newspaper reporting on the day of elections – has already passed state parliament.

But despite several rounds of consultation and an interim report last December, no action has been flagged by Attorney-General Elise Archer.

Tasmania’s rules on electoral donations are the weakest in the nation.

Political parties are only required to declare the source of donations worth $13,800 or more meaning that the source of the vast majority of donations are never known.

Opinion polling conducted by the Mercury has found overwhelming support for greater transparency – 94 per cent in the most recent survey. Labor’s shadow attorney-general Ella Haddad said every state in the nation had better laws on the disclosure of electoral donations.

“Labor’s policy is that all political parties as well as candidates should have to disclose donations above $1000 and those disclosures should be made within 14 days.

“It is not good enough that we continue with a system where candidates and third parties are not required to disclose expenditure in campaigns.” A government spokesman said: “The Government will be provided with a final report by the end of this year for consideration.”

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said the Liberals could not be more obvious about their reluctance to introduce stronger donations disclosure laws for Tasmania.

“The narrowly focused review process, which stalled the actual work of electoral reform, made clear they have no appetite for substantial reform on donations transparency.”

Ms O’Connor said the Liberal Party had enjoyed a great advantage from the laws in the last state election.

“Business as usual on donations suits them very well. They’ll want to attract similar money from the big end of town as they did at the last election, again in 2022. Why would the Liberals actually want electoral donations reform, when they’ve successfully hidden their millions so far.”