Cowper MP Pat Conaghan has laughed off suggestions his National Party is in the same boat as the Labor and Liberal parties, and Teal candidates, when it comes to new political donation laws.

Passed last Thursday morning, the reforms included:

• Lowering the disclosure threshold to $5,000 from $16,900 (Labor had wanted $1,000);

• Introducing a $50,000 cap on political donations from each donor per year (Labor had wanted $20,000), and;

• Keeping “nominated entities” and unions exempt from donation caps.

• A spending cap per candidate of $800,000.

Major parties can stockpile donations while Independent candidates are capped

Essentially, while this would increase the amount of transparency around smaller donations, it would allow for the major parties to hoard money over several years and accept funds with no limits from its nominated entity and unions.

In addition, major parties have several registered state and territory branches around the country, meaning a donor can give $50,000 each to nine Labor branches, or $50,000 each to 13 Coalition entities.

The Australia Institute says this can be stockpiled over four years for each three-year federal electoral cycle - once ahead of an election and three times over the course of a government, if it runs its full term.

However, an Independent who only decided to run in the year prior to an election could only accept one donation of $50,000 from a given organisation.

“While I know that we are lumped in under the banner of the Coalition, the reality of our funding is quite different to the Liberal Party’s,” Conaghan told The Mid North Coaster.

“I can only speak to my own experience and what I personally witness, but there is certainly not a bottomless pit of funding for National Party candidates. I can confidently say that my funding stream last election was less than half of the Teal independent’s kitty.”

Are major parties rigging the system?

Caz Heise, the Independent candidate for Cowper who came close to unseating Conaghan at the 2022 election, condemned the move as “a desperate attempt to silence community-backed candidates and entrench power within party machines”.

Heise said: “The fact that Labor and the Liberals have teamed up on this - right before the election - shows just how scared they are of everyday people getting involved in politics. 

Instead of earning back trust with better policies and more honest campaigns, they’re trying to rig the system in their favour.”

A Federal Government spokesperson said the reforms would allow for greater integrity.

“The proposed reforms create a fairer electoral system for all Australians, including through more donation transparency, caps on spending and caps on donations,” the spokesperson said.

The University of Sydney Law School Professor of Constitutional Law Anne Twomey said the legislation would unfairly punish new independent candidates.

“You’ve got a problem here where the rules are very deliberately unbalanced in favour of major political parties,” she told ABC Radio National.

“So the major political parties, for example, can get advance funding from that public funding, whereas if you’re a new entry into the system, you get zero in advance.

“They get huge amounts of money flowing into their campaign accounts from their nominated entities, which are their funding vehicles that the major parties already have.”

Twomey said there was a “reasonable argument” to be made that some of the provisions were invalid because it created an uneven playing field.

“It’s really aimed at taking a stick to minor parties and independents, and is not for the purpose of trying to take money out of politics and get rid of undue influence,” she said.

Does funding win elections?

Conaghan said he “would like to remind everyone that funding alone doesn’t win an election. All you have to do is look at Clive Palmer and the UAP [United Australia Party] last election, who won no seats in the upper or lower house despite the colossal spend across the country”.

“If your people and your policies aren’t palatable to the electorate, you will lose. A million dollars doesn’t fix that.”

He said it was “extremely distasteful” for Teal candidates to be “crying poor” or claiming that they themselves are now not sitting on war chests of their own, because of course we know that they are.”

“I don’t understand how this is an ‘attack on democracy’. It is like any other cap. It is designed to level a playing field, not skew it to any individual’s favour.” 

Image: AAP Photos