SIMON Corbell has tabled two reports into the ACT Electoral Act and introduced legislation making changes to the electoral system.

The Attorney-General announced that amendments to the Electoral Act support most of the recommendations of the Select Committee on Amendments to the Electoral Act 1992, some of which include:

• Lower electoral expenditure caps for both individual candidates and parties.
• Increasing public funding for eligible votes from $2 to $8 per eligible vote received.
• Consistent treatment of anonymous gifts.
• Bringing financial reporting responsibilities into line with modern business practices.

The Bill also implements most of the recommendations made by the Electoral Commission in relation to campaign finance, including:

• Clarifying disclosure requirements for gifts received by ministers.
• Extending the deadline for lodgement of annual returns to assist parties to provide accurate reports, but still make information publicly available prior to elections.
• Revising a number of reporting requirements to assist compliance without reducing accountability and transparency.

“In addition to these areas, the Bill removes the limits on donations to candidates and parties, eliminating any unintended incentive to circumvent controls on electoral funding, while still maintaining strict reporting requirements. These requirements, with the reduced election expenditure caps and increase in public funding, work to support a robust and transparent electoral funding scheme,” Simon said.

“The government responses and the accompanying legislation will result in clearer electoral regulation, including less onerous reporting responsibilities, without diminishing the accountability of parties and electoral candidates,” Mr Corbell said.

“The responses will result in a greater alignment with modern accounting practices and use of the internet to communicate. The Bill also makes a number of technical amendments to clarify the operation of the Act.

“The changes agreed to in the government responses will strengthen the integrity of our electoral system as the cornerstone of a robust democracy and a society in which citizens can truly participate.”

UPDATE: The Greens’ Shane Rattenbury savaged the bill, saying it “would increase public funding for ACT elections from $2 to $8 per vote and see political parties receive a financial windfall at the expense of the ACT’s democracy.”

“While the Greens support public funding of elections to reduce undue or corrupt influence, the public funding must serve as a replacement to large donations – not be in addition to them,” Shane said.

“Yet this Bill increases public funding from $2 per vote to $8 per vote while removing the restriction on the size of donations.

“The big parties want to see the $10,000 limit on donations removed; the Greens want that cap halved to $5,000. The big parties have given themselves a $1million budget for election campaigns; the Greens want to see election campaign spending cut to half a million for parties.

“It’s unconscionable to ask ACT taxpayers to cough up for $1 million dollar election campaigns whilst the old parties tighten their grip around Canberra’s democracy.

“While I supported the moves to reduce the per-candidate expenditure cap from $60,000 to $40,000, this will have limited effect when bigger parties can reap the benefits of pooling candidate funding to run million dollar campaigns, drowning out independents and smaller party groupings.

“A $500k cap on election spending would have created a genuine level playing field. A million dollar cap just leaves the big parties playing the same game but this time with their snouts in the trough gobbling almost $700k of public funds each.

“The decision to increase public funding without reigning in party expenditure or restricting donations is ludicrous. It amounts to a net gain for the big political parties, and cannot be described as anything other than an unprecedented and unjustifiable act of self-interest.

“Until we see real limits on campaign expenditure and donations, it is untenable to ask members of our community to fork out for election campaign costs.

“Public funding of elections should deliver democratic benefits to the community, not just more cash to political parties.” Mr Rattenbury concluded.