Greens and crossbench furious at ‘dirty deal’ to pass electoral reforms

Labor is poised to strike a deal with the Coalition on electoral reforms that would cap how much parties and other entities can spend on an election campaign while putting a ceiling on donations.

Special Minister for State Don Farrell. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

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Labor is poised to strike a deal with the Coalition on electoral reforms that would cap how much parties and other entities, including unions and business groups, can spend on an election campaign, while putting a ceiling on donations, in a move the crossbench has described as a “stitch-up”.

Special Minister of State Don Farrell last year drew close to securing Coalition support for the legislation – which would also see the donation disclosure threshold significantly lowered – but pushed negotiations over the bill into 2025.

Labor’s electoral reforms, which propose a $20,000 donation cap and $1000 disclosure threshold, were scheduled for debate in the Senate last Thursday, in an effort to demonstrate the government’s commitment to passing the legislation aimed at keeping the “big money” of outfits such as Climate 200 and Clive Palmer out of politics.

The Australian understands Labor is confident it can pass the bill on Wednesday, but is expecting amendments from the Coalition, which will mean the legislation must go back to the lower house for a final tick-off before the parliamentary sitting fortnight comes to a close on Thursday night.

Amendments are likely to include a tweaking of the donation cap and disclosure thresholds, given the Coalition’s concerns that a $1000 threshold could be onerous for small businesses.

“If it doesn’t get done tomorrow, it doesn’t get done,” one senior Labor source told The Australian on Tuesday.

A Coalition source also confirmed the parties were “close” to a deal.

But the looming passage of the legislation prompted outrage from the crossbench, which has criticised the electoral reforms for entrenching the advantages of the major parties.

“The long-rumoured fix is in. Rather than improve their policies to improve their falling popularity, Labor and the Coalition are agreeing on rigging the system to lock out their competitors,” Greens Senate leader Larissa Waters said.

“Labor and the Coalition have teamed up to do a dirty deal to benefit themselves and lock out smaller parties, independents and new entrants. We repeatedly told the government that we were ready to pass the transparency and truth aspects of this legislation, but that there needed to be scrutiny through a Senate inquiry about the real effect of the funding aspects of the bills.”

The two major parties last week voted against a Senate inquiry for the bill, which also proposes to cap parties’ election spending to $90m nationally and $800,000 per electorate, while groups such as Advance Australia or GetUp would be restricted to spending $11m on a federal campaign.

Climate 200 donated $6m across 19 candidates at the last election, with the $20,000 gift cap to significantly curb what the group could give to each independent going forward.

Mr Palmer also invested millions during the 2022 election, spending $123m and winning just one Senate seat.

Despite the Greens’ frustration over Labor’s decision to do a deal with the Coalition, the minor party indicated it was still open to supporting the government’s bill to double the tax rate on super accounts of more than $3m, and even offered to help Labor in negotiations with other crossbenchers.