Jay Weatherill's election campaign funding reforms for political parties stalled until 2015

USING $5 million of taxpayers cash for political parties' election funding will be delayed until after the South Australian March poll.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill in Parliament.

AN overhaul of state election funding laws, which includes $5 million of taxpayer money for political campaigning, will be delayed until after the March poll.

Premier Jay Weatherill announced the reforms in September, which offer political parties up to $2.1 million each in taxpayer funding and impose stringent rules on disclosing donations.

He said wanted the scheme operational by the next state election, in March.

However, the start date will be stalled until 2015 because of concerns about a lack of time to train party officials on the new rules and claims it can't be afforded with a Budget in record deficit.

Voters will now be denied updates during the coming campaign about who is donating to the political parties and how much they are handing over.

Opposition treasury spokesman Iain Evans said he had been calling for reform since 2006 but did not want the scheme to start immediately given the state's "awful" Budget position.

"Taxpayers shouldn't be borrowing money to fund political parties at this stage," he said.

Mr Evans said delaying the operation date gave the Budget time to recover.

He denied suggestions the Liberals' strong position in the polls and a reported surge in donations from business was behind the decision to delay.

Under the new rules, political parties would only be given public funding if they agreed to cap campaign spending at $4 million.

Mr Evans said the Liberals had 180 administrative units across the state, making it impossible to train all of its officials ahead of an election in less than six months' time.

Attorney-General John Rau said he accepted the scheme could not be implemented by March but agreed it could have been operational if the Government had put it on the agenda earlier.

"I think we've got a model that will probably be the best in Australia once it's up and running," he told The Advertiser.

"Up until now, there hasn't been a meeting of minds over a model."

The scheme would also cut the threshold for disclosing the source of a donation in half, to $5000, and require reporting twice a year instead of once.

It would also force monthly and weekly disclosure as voting day approaches.

The proposed laws are expected to be passed by State Parliament next week with a July 1, 2015 commencement date, meaning they would apply for the first time at the 2018 state election.

The Government has insisted changes would only be made with bipartisan support.