State Government criticised for its slow action on political donation law reforms

Labor and the Greens have attacked the Government for its slow pace on action to reform the state’s political donation rules.

THE State Government’s continuing inaction on increasing the transparency of political donations has drawn sharp criticism from opposition parties.

The first round of reforms – including the reversal of a ban on newspaper reporting on the day of elections – has already passed state parliament.

But despite several rounds of consultation and an interim report last December, no action has been flagged by Attorney-General Elise Archer.

Tasmania’s rules on electoral donations are the weakest in the nation.

Political parties are required to declare only the source of donations worth $13,800 or more, meaning the sources of the vast majority of donations are never known.

EDITORIAL: POLITICAL DONATION RULES MUST BE CHANGED

Opinion polling conducted by the Mercury has found overwhelming support for greater transparency – 94 per cent in the most recent survey.

Labor’s shadow Attorney-General Ella Haddad said every state in the nation had better laws on the disclosure of electoral donations.

“Labor’s policy is that all political parties as well as candidates should have to disclose donations above $1000 and those disclosures should be made within 14 days.

“It is not good enough that we continue with a system where candidates and third parties are not required to disclose expenditure in campaigns.

“What does Will Hodgman have to hide?”

A Government spokesperson said: “The Government will be provided with a final report by the end of this year for consideration.”

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said the Liberals could not be more obvious about their reluctance to introduce stronger donations disclosure laws for Tasmania.

“The narrowly focused review process, which stalled the actual work of electoral reform, made clear they have no appetite for substantial reform on donations transparency,” she said.

Ms O’Connor said the Liberal Party had enjoyed a great advantage from the laws in the last state election.

“Business as usual on donations suits them very well. They’ll want to attract similar money from the big end of town, as they did at the last election, again in 2022.

“Why would the Liberals actually want electoral donations reform, when they’ve successfully hidden their millions so far?

“If it wasn’t so destructive to our democracy, it would be laughable.”