Parties could be paid for votes under proposed electoral reforms

Political parties could be paid according to how many votes they receive under a plan being floated to reform the state’s electoral laws.

A review has floated the possibility of Tasmania’s politcal parties being paid for each vote they receive.

POLITICAL parties could be paid up to $8 for every vote they receive under a plan being floated to reform the state’s electoral laws.

The State Government released the Interim Report of the review into the Electoral Act on Thursday.

The Government unveiled a series of draft reforms to the Act, including the repeal of restrictions on press coverage on the day of an election — which came with massive fines or jail time for newspaper editors who breached the rule.

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Premier Will Hodgman promised changes to the laws the day after the March state election.

The state’s requirement for once-a-year disclosures of political donations is being left behind by developments in other states, which are introducing real-time disclosure via websites. The majority of payments to Tasmanian political parties are never made public because they are less than the $13,000 threshold for reporting.

Opposition Leader Rebecca White and Premier Will Hodgman. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

The review report said introducing a tighter disclosure regimen may create the need for public funding of elections via direct payments to political parties for every vote they get.

“Public funding of elections is provided in all Australian jurisdictions with disclosure regimes in place, apart from the Northern Territory,” the report notes.

“The current Commonwealth rate of public funding is $2.68 per vote. The Commonwealth rate of $2.68 is fairly average across the jurisdictions.

“Western Australia has the lowest rate of public funding at $1.68 and the Australian Capital Territory, the highest, at $8.00 per first preference vote.

“Public funding can be seen to act as a form of compensation in situations where other funding sources have been limited through caps or prohibited donors or potentially where a reduction in political donations as a result of disclosure regimes and thresholds may be anticipated.”

Labor leader Rebecca White blamed the Liberals’ cashed-up campaign against her side by poker machine interests for the party’s failure to secure a better result in the March election.

Mr Hodgman said he would look into reform.

“There are a number of issues that have become apparent in this campaign that could be looked at,” he said.