Premier doesn’t want public money spent on political campaigns

Premier Peter Gutwein says he doesn’t sense a great impetus for electoral donation law reform in Tasmania.

CASHED UP: Political parties in Tasmania enjoy the laxest donation laws in the country.

PREMIER Peter Gutwein says he is opposed to increased public funding for political parties as a way to kerb the influence of private donations.

Tasmania has the weakest regulation of electoral donations in the country.

Under the current rules, parties are only required to disclose the source of donations of more than $13,800 and latest disclosures came up to 19 months after the donations were actually made.

It means the source of the vast bulk of donations to Tasmania’s political parties stay secret forever.

The government has promised reform and one of the measures proposed by a discussion paper was weaning parties off private money altogether.

But speaking on ABC radio this morning, Mr Gutwein said he didn’t think public subsidies for political parties were the way to go.

Premier Peter Gutwein. Picture: PATRICK GEE

“It’s about getting the balance right,” he said. “I don’t think Tasmanians would want us taking money out of health or education to pay for public funding for elections.

“I think that we’ve got to ensure that people don’t feel that they can’t contribute or make a contribution to the public debate by supporting a political party and feel that they are in some way going to be pressured as a result of that.”

The Liberals out-spent the opposition parties by more than three to one at the 2018 state election — thanks to an influx of donations from hotels industry worries about Labor’s plan to ban poker machines from public and clubs.

“Why wouldn’t the hotel sector have supported the Liberal Party and on one hand, in many cases?” Mr Gutwein said.

“The policies of Labor and the Greens would have shut those businesses down and we wanted to see people employed.”

Mr Gutwein said he didn’t sense a great impetus for change the electoral donation disclosure laws.

“In many cases where political laws have changed that have been catalyst for that change in terms of New South Wales, and some of the challenges that they’ve had through their processes and the ICAC investigations — we haven’t seen that occur in Tasmania.

“But look, the former Premier said that we’d look at it, and I intend to look at it.”