Transparent Political Donations and Advertising (AU0030)

Commitment 7. Political Donation Transparency and Political Advertising Truth.

Department of Finance Electoral and Superannuation Policy/Governance

For a complete description of the commitment, see commitment 7 in Australia’s Open Government Partnership National Action Plan 2023–2025.

Context and objectives:

Part XX of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 specifies public funding of federal election campaign arrangements and disclosure of the funding source. There is currently no legal requirement for the content of political advertisements to be factually correct. Political advertising is regulated by the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, which cover the access, timing, identification, and authorization of political advertising, but not the content or opinions expressed in each advertisement. The Australian Communications and Media Authority and the Australian Electoral Commission have responsibility for ensuring these laws regarding attribution are followed. [44] Long term civil society concern about the efficacy of this legislation is reflected in the fact that all of Australia’s OGP action plans have sought greater transparency of election and party-political funding. [45]

This commitment’s stated ambition is to support representative democracy by assisting the public in exercising their franchise to make informed judgements about candidates, political parties, and other actors seeking to influence election outcomes. It aggregates commitment proposals from the OGF’s Strengthening Democratic Processes Working Group. It builds on electoral system reform work commenced by the government following the 2022 federal election, and responds to the political funding and governing truth in political advertising recommendations in the June 2023 Interim Report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the 2022 Federal Election. [46] This report recommended lowering donation disclosure thresholds, expediting reporting of donations, capping political donations and electoral expenditure, establishing campaign accounts, introducing a new system of campaign funding, and governing “truth” in political advertising. The final report, released in November 2023, discussed electoral reform, and made further recommendations on donations to charities, terminology, and media blackout. [47]

The commitment commenced its first three milestones prior to the action plan’s official implementation period. In November 2023, the government responded to the interim report [48] and made an initial response to the final report (a full response will be released during the implementation period), [49] expressing its intention to undertake legislative action on money in politics in a consultative manner. The commitment description advises that work to secure multi-partisan parliamentary support for legislative reform has started. With that support, the commitment intends to introduce legislation to the 47^th Parliament in 2024, during the action plan’s implementation period. Full implementation of this commitment before the next election would require passage of the legislation before the next election, which must be held on or before 24 May 2025 to coincide with a half-Senate election. [50]

Potential for results: Substantial

Results for this commitment rely on the successful passage of legislation on transparency in political donations and truth in political advertising. The government’s intention to secure electoral reform has been in the public sphere since July 2022. [51] The scope is set out in the commentary and detailed recommendations 1–10 in the June 2023 interim report [52] and 11–13 in the November 2023 final report. [53] The Special Minister of State, during the Senate’s examination of estimates in October 2023, advised that he was working with all of the groups in the parliament to get a suite of electoral reforms before the next election. These reforms include reducing the donation disclosures figure, requiring real-time disclosure, and making progress on truth-in-advertising laws, which involves considering the South Australian government’s model. [54] Some more details were reported by the media on 12 March 2024 and were described as a “radical electoral overhaul”. [55] The actual detail of this legislation will be known when the Parliamentary process commences.

Public concern about truth in political advertising was evident during Australia’s unsuccessful October 2023 referendum to change the Constitution and has continued. This Constitutional reform would have recognized the First Peoples of Australia by establishing a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. [56] The special exit poll by the Australia Institute revealed that nine in ten Australians support truth in political advertising laws, regardless of how they voted in the referendum or their political affiliations. [57] It reported support for the federal parliament to follow the example set by South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory and to enact laws to protect voters from misleading and harmful electoral conduct.

External analysis of annual political returns, released by the Australian Electoral Commission in February 2024, [58] show between 21% and 27% of donations and other receipts to Labor, the Coalition, and the Greens were from unnamed sources. [59] Hidden money amounting to $1.38 billion was identified over the past two decades. [60] Civil society organizations observe that this is the government’s next big test on integrity and that the donation laws must be fixed before the next election in 2025. [61] OGF’s civil society members affirmed the importance of this commitment’s potential for results on Australia’s open governance. AGD engagement in the commitment influenced their confidence. They noted that this commitment could illustrate Australia’s open government leadership internationally. They also confirmed the public’s desire for substantial change. [62] The commitment was ranked 1st out of eight by the ten members of the public who responded to the action plan’s Phase Two online survey. Several of the online Phase 1 survey’s public respondents also favoured limits to political donations. [63]

In March 2024, the media reported that the government was expected by mid-year to introduce legislation capping electoral spending and donations and authorizing new powers for an independent regulator to enforce truth in political advertising. The media also reported that the Prime Minister had met with crossbenchers, suggesting that the “truth laws and caps” could be legislated this term but not applied until after the next election. [64] It reported that a comment from the Opposition leader that truth in political advertising is “probably welcome” signals that the Opposition Coalition may support new laws to safeguard elections. (Earlier reports in February 2024 had indicated significant work was needed to achieve multi-partisan support for the legislation. [65]) Further support for the government could be gained from Parliament’s Independent MPs. For example, in November 2023, a Federal Independent MP introduced a private member’s bill to parliament to stop lies in political advertising—the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Voter Protections in Political Advertising) Bill 2023—aiming to bring greater integrity to the political process. [66] The MP urged all sides of politics to get on board. [67]

Should the government achieve the level of legislative change it is seeking, the potential for results would be substantial, including increased transparency of political donations, more truthful political advertising and, ultimately, increased trust in government.

Opportunities, challenges, and recommendations during implementation

Achieving this result is reliant initially on the government’s response in 2024 to the Final Report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and on gaining subsequent cross-party agreement for legislative change in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Some OGF members’ concern—about this change being dependent on political decisions—reinforces the need for government to gain multi-partisan support before introducing the legislation. Negotiations to date appear to signal the government is gaining this support.

While this significant reform depends on legislative strength, adding extra non-legislative milestones to this commitment could ensure modest change, even if the legislation is not passed. For example, Australia could strengthen electoral enforcement processes, update political advertising processes, and learn from other OGP countries, such as Croatia’s political funding disclosure website, which has contributed to improved public monitoring and oversight by authorities. [68] To support this reform, the IRM recommends implementers consider non-legislative measures that require greater transparency of existing political donations and more resourcing to counter mis-and dis-information which is affecting political advertising by: