Concern for charities in foreign donation reforms

Labor and the Greens are questioning whether new donation laws will impact on charities and interest group advocates.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale in Melbourne. Picture: AAP

Labor and the Greens have voiced major concerns at Malcolm Turnbull’s proposed crackdown on foreign donations, questioning whether the overhaul will pose unreasonable limitations on the advocacy of major interest groups and charities.

The shake-up is part of measures aimed at curbing the influence of foreign powers on Australia’s domestic political affairs and was unveiled last week at the height of the row over Labor senator Sam Dastyari’s links with Chinese billionaire and political donor, Huang Xiangmo.

Under the reforms, a ban will apply on the flow of foreign funds to organisations incurring “political expenditure” of more than $100,000 in any of the past four years or $50,000 where that represents 50 per cent or more of the group’s annual budget.

Groups that fall into this category will be recategorised as “political campaigners” with Finance Minister Mathias Cormann clarifying that left-wing activist group GetUp! would be captured.

But Labor and the Greens are demanding answers on whether other groups could be caught, including environmental organisations that run prominent campaigns. Their concerns have the potential to stall the passage of the reforms through the Senate, with Greens Leader Richard Di Natale asking whether charities would be affected.

“It’s likely these changes will have a chilling effect on the many organisations simply advocating for the public good,” he told The Australian. “There was a time when upholding democratic principles was a key tenet of conservative thinking but instead we’ve seen a creeping authoritarianism from this government reflected in attacks like this on civil society.”

A spokesman for the shadow special minister of state, Don Farrell, said Labor would seek detailed briefings from the government on the complete package of measures.

Senator Cormann told The Australian that “charities and registered organisations under the Fair Work Act, such as unions” would still be able to “receive and use foreign donations to fund non-political activities as well as raise political donations from Australians and Australian organisations to fund political expenditure.”

He said that, for a group to be recategorised, they would need to spend more than $100,000 on “things like election advertising, distributing how-to-vote material and generally expenditure on the public expression of views on political parties, candidates and election issues.”