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Coalition MPs must have rocks in their heads if they support Don Farrell’s political donation and spending reforms. It’s a major party stitch-up — but one that Labor wins from, big-time.
This week marks the sixth time Farrell has gone around the press gallery explaining that donations reform is nearly here. As expected, instead of legislating Labor’s election commitment to reduce the threshold for reporting donations to $1,000 and requiring real-time disclosure (now pared back to monthly reporting, but at least it will move to weekly during election campaigns), Farrell has put together a package to embed the major parties’ incumbency — at the expense of taxpayers.
The basis of the package looks to be a deal with the Coalition. Labor will use donation and spending caps to help choke off funding from wealthy backers like Climate 200 for teal independents, in exchange for Coalition support for killing off Clive Palmer’s massive campaign spending — driven by Labor’s belief that Palmer lost them the 2019 election (hint to Labor: 2019 had very little to do with Palmer and a lot to do with the giant target you painted on your own backs).
But taxpayers will come to the rescue on donation caps with an outrageous 50% increase in public funding for political parties securing above 4% of the vote — which rules out new independent candidates. That increase will translate into tens of millions in additional taxpayer funding for Labor and the Coalition. And with a global spending cap of $90 million for the major parties, the mainstream media will also be looked after — a real spending cap would end the triennial handover of tens of millions of dollars from the major parties to newspapers and broadcasters for election advertising.
But if the Coalition feels tempted by the prospect of killing off teals before they can take Liberal seats, it should remember that Farrell reportedly wants to exempt unions from contribution limits. Yes, they’ll be subject to the same donation caps as everyone else, but their affiliation and membership fees — the funds that buy unions their internal clout and policy heft within the ALP — won’t be covered. That’s a flow of millions of dollars to the ALP that the Liberals and Nationals simply don’t have, justified under the sacred utterance “the ALP is the parliamentary wing of the labour movement”.
The case for capping union contributions to Labor — however they’re structured or paid — is as strong as the argument for capping donations by businesses looking to influence policy in their own interests. As the CFMEU’s role within the Andrews government in Victoria showed, union influence within Labor — usually wielded behind closed doors — can be deeply toxic. Farrell wants to give the union-Labor relationship a protected status that would allow influence-peddling and special interests to continue — and give Labor a substantial electoral advantage.
Why Coalition MPs would think giving this advantage to Labor is a good idea is a mystery.
Real donations and spending reform would impose a level playing field on both major parties and independents and ban donations above a relatively low threshold (Farrell wants a $20,000 per candidate and $600,000 global cap, which is far too high), thereby forcing all parties and candidates to turn to grassroots fundraising. The media would not allow this, given it would slash their triennial advertising windfall. Instead, taxpayers and the teals will pay the price for a major party stitch-up, while Clive Palmer, presumably, will see them in court.