Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2008

From Lobbyocracy.org.au

The Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2008 was introduced to parliament by Special Minister of State John Faulkner in March 2008.

The bill makes the following provisions:

• reduce the disclosure threshold from ‘more than $10,000’ (indexed to the Consumer Price Index annually) to $1,000 (non-indexed);
• require people who make gifts above the threshold to candidates and members of groups during the election disclosure period to furnish a return within 8 weeks after polling day. Agents of candidates and groups have a similar timeframe to furnish a return in relation to gifts received during the disclosure period;
• if they fall within the relevant provision, require people who make gifts, agents of registered political parties, the financial controller of an associated entity, or people who have incurred political expenditure to furnish a return within 8 weeks after 31 December and 30 June each year rather than following the end of each financial year;
• ensure that for the purposes of the $1,000 threshold and the disclosure of gifts, related political parties are treated as the one entity;
• make unlawful the receipt of a gift of foreign property by political parties, candidates and members of a Senate group. It will also be unlawful in some situations for associated entities and people incurring political expenditure to receive a gift of foreign property;
• extend the current prohibition on the receipt of anonymous gifts above the threshold to prohibit the receipt of all anonymous gifts by registered political parties, candidates and members of a Senate group. It will also be unlawful in some situations for associated entities and people incurring political expenditure to receive an anonymous gift;
• provide that public funding of election campaigning is limited to declared expenditure incurred by the eligible political party, candidate or Senate group, or the sum payable calculated on the number of first preference votes received where they have satisfied the 4% threshold, whichever is the lesser;
• provide for the recovery of gifts of foreign property that are not returned, anonymous gifts that are not returned and undisclosed gifts; and
• introduce new offences and penalties related to the new measures and increase the penalties for existing offence provisions.

Web: http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/browse.aspx?NodeID=35