SIMON Corbell is celebrating the passage of his electoral changes.

“The Electoral Amendment Act 2015 makes significant improvements which strengthen the integrity of our electoral system as the cornerstone of a robust democracy and a society in which citizens can truly participate,” Simon said.

“The government carefully considered various interests across the community before proposing changes.”

The Act adopts a large number of the recommendations the Select Committee put forward in its report, “Voting Matters”, including:

• Lower electoral expenditure caps for both individual candidates and parties.
• Increased public funding for eligible votes from $2 to $8 per eligible vote received.
• Consistent treatment of anonymous gifts.

“The Act also implements the majority of recommendations made by the Electoral Commission in relation to campaign finance to improve reporting and enhance accountability and transparency.

“The Act removes the limits on donations to candidates and parties, eliminating any unintended incentive to circumvent controls on electoral funding.

“The removal of donation caps will not reduce the robust framework that exists for reporting donations in the ACT.

“Instead, the government’s reforms surrounding electoral expenditure and public funding counterbalance the removal of donation caps by limiting the usefulness of excessive donations.

“The government is confident these reforms strike the right balance of maintaining a strong system while facilitating greater participation in the political process.”

Shane Rattenbury on the other hand has taken a different view, leading with the headline:

FOR SALE: ACT Democracy

“Today we saw ACT Labor and the Canberra Liberals team up to water down the ACT’s electoral laws,” said Mr Rattenbury.

“It is clear that the community does not support the undermining of ACT democracy that will leave MLAs exposed to being influenced by big donations from corporations and unions.

“We’ve seen the corrupting influence of political donations in NSW, and, while we don’t have the history of exposed corruption that NSW does, surely prevention is better than cure?

“The ACT has had a $10,000 limit on donations since 2012 and now big business and unions will be allowed to donate again, despite the Assembly Committee not agreeing to this.

“But perhaps the most offensive element of these reforms is the simultaneous increase to the amount of public funding for election campaigns – from $2 per vote to $8 per vote. The big parties are taking with one hand, and then taking with the other.

“I think the community would have more confidence in the public funding of political parties if they saw that parties were prepared to forgo large corporate and union donations.

“Had the ALP and the Canberra Liberals agreed to keep donation caps in place, then a modest increase in public funding would have been more justifiable,” said Mr Rattenbury.