Labor to back electoral reforms that could deregister dozens of minor parties
Labor has decided to wave through a suite of electoral bills that could deregister dozens of minor parties and will give old parties a monopoly on words used in their name.
On Tuesday the Labor caucus backed the changes proposed by the Morrison government, although the opposition will object to one bill that attempts to lower the disclosure threshold for political campaigners, such as NGOs and charities.
Earlier in August the assistant minister for electoral matters, Ben Morton, introduced four electoral bills into federal parliament to crack down on multiple voting and violence at polls, and raise the bar for party registration.
The crossbench and minor parties opposed the party registration integrity bill, which would require them to have a member in parliament or 1,500 members, up from 500, to be registered.
The socially liberal New Liberals and libertarian Liberal Democrats blasted the government for a new provision that would require them to get permission from the Liberal Party of Australia to use the word “Liberal” in their names.
The joint standing committee on electoral matters recommended the party registration changes in its review of the 2019 election, although Labor members had suggested a 1,000member threshold at the time.
The other electoral bills supported by Labor:
Clarify what counts as “interference with political liberty”, specifying that “violence, obscene or discriminatory abuse, property damage and harassment or stalking” can constitute a breach of the existing section.
Raise the penalty for interference with political liberty to three years in prison.
Reduce the period of pre-poll to a maximum of 12 days.
Allow the electoral commissioner to classify someone a “designated elector” who must use a declaration vote to prevent them casting multiple votes.
The three bills supported by Labor will probably pass the House of Representatives and Senate with opposition support, although the shadow special minister of state, Don Farrell, is still in consultation with Morton.
The bills were due to be debated in the House of Representatives on Tuesday but were pulled from the schedule.
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Labor will oppose the bill that would lower the expenditure threshold to register as a political campaigner from $500,000 to $100,000.
Farrell told Guardian Australia Labor “will always stand with Aus
tralia’s charities and not-for-profits against the government’s self-interested attempts to constrain their vital contributions to Australian democracy”.
The Greens democracy spokesperson, Larissa Waters, said it was “very disappointing to see Labor gang up with government to stymie new small political parties from seeking election”.
“The two party system sure suits the two parties, but it duds the Australian people and diminishes democracy. [It’s] hard to tell Liberal and Labor apart on many issues these days.”
Waters said it was “crucial” the crossbench join Labor and the Greens to oppose changes that would subject NGOs engaged in advocacy to “mounds of extra paperwork which would have a chilling effect on participation in civil society”.
Campbell Newman, the Liberal Democrats’ lead Queensland Senate candidate, has described the naming rule change as a “shabby tactic” and a bid by the major parties to “rig the electoral laws to their own benefit”.
Bill Browne, a senior researcher at the Australia Institute, said that words like liberal, labour and green “describe ideologies and interests found across multiple parties, not just the parties that got there first”.
“Australia has a long history of splinter parties, like the Democratic Labour party and the Liberal Movement, whose names represent their background and concerns.”
Earlier in August, Morton told the House of Representatives that political parties not currently represented in parliament would have three months to demonstrate they have a “genuine base of community support” of 1,500 members.
Morton said the name rule was needed to reduce “voter confusion” as they would otherwise be “misled” by similar names.
Commonsense exceptions would apply around words like “alliance”, “party” and “Australia”, he said.