Rockliff government’s political donation reform bill being intentionally delayed: Labor

The Tasmanian government is deliberately delaying debate on its bill to strengthen laws around political donations, Labor justice spokeswoman Ella Haddad says.

Ella Haddad Labor member for Clark. Question time in the Tasmanian parliament. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

The state government is dragging its heels on legislation to overhaul Tasmania’s political donation laws due to Liberal Party unrest and a lack of real commitment to the reforms, Labor says.

A bill that would require political candidates and parties to publicly declare electoral donations of more than $5000 passed the House of Assembly last year. But despite an assurance that the proposed new laws would be debated in the Legislative Council early this year, the bill is still yet to be tabled.

Tasmania’s electoral donation laws are considered the weakest in the nation and Labor justice spokeswoman Ella Haddad says the $5000 threshold is “way too high” and “doesn’t pass the pub test”.

Labor member for Clark Ella Haddad. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

The Opposition will seek to have the disclosure threshold lowered to $1000 when the legislation comes before the upper house.

“Their bill would still put us at the bottom of the ladder, the worst in the country, but it would at least be a start to fixing this very broken system,” Ms Haddad said.

She also hit out at the Rockliff government’s overall record on transparency, describing it as the “most secretive government this state has ever seen”.

“A very stark example of that is the fact that the review process through the Ombudsman’s office [shows] 70 per cent of government decisions around whether or not to disclose information [through Right to Information requests] were overturned by the office,” she said.

Minister Felix Ellis. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Government minister Felix Ellis said “we’d expect” the donation reform bill to be debated in the upper house before the end of this year.

“The upper house will have an opportunity to examine that bill before the end of the year and we’re looking forward to passing it because ultimately we want to make sure that we have transparency as part of our processes and continuing to support our democracy,” he said.

Originally published as Rockliff government’s political donation reform bill being intentionally delayed: Labor