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Greens pull political stunt to force Labor into reconsidering its own stalled donations laws
The Cook Labor government will be forced to reconsider political donation transparency laws it promised more than six years ago but are nowhere to be seen after it failed to pass the bill in 2020.
On Thursday Greens MP Brad Pettitt will introduce a private members bill to parliament which is a near exact reproduction of Labor’s own Electoral Amendment Bill it introduced in parliament in June 2020 but failed to pass before the 2021 election.
The state government says Victoria has the toughest political donations laws in Australia.Credit: The Age
He will also deliver the same speech made by former Electoral Affairs Minister Stephen Dawson when he introduced the bill to the upper house three years ago.
Despite assurances, the Labor government is yet to reintroduce the bill more than two years into its second term.
Pettitt hoped the stunt would wedge the new Cook Government into fulfilling its 2017 election promise.
“The Greens only get one opportunity a year to introduce legislation, so this is definitely unconventional, but given Labor’s unambitious and largely conservative legislative agenda, this was a way of the Greens holding Labor accountable to their own election promises and putting much-needed political donations reform back on the table,” he said.
“It has been two elections and nearly seven years since Labor’s initial promise to reform WA’s political donations laws.
“It is troubling that Labor hasn’t bothered to prioritise these changes in the two years since they let the original bill expire.
“It clearly isn’t because of other more important bills, given how mundane the legislative agenda of this Parliament has been.”
The bill would introduce sweeping reforms to WA’s political donation laws, including lowering the state disclosure threshold from $2500 to $1000 and closing loopholes for political parties to keep tens of millions in donations a secret by opting to use the Commonwealth disclosure system.
This year the Labor and Liberal parties collectively recorded $11.7 million in unattributed donations and gifts, known colloquially as “dark money”, according to annual returns published by the West Australian Electoral Commission late last year.
The bill will also place a total ban on foreign donations in WA, place election campaign expenditure caps of $125,000 per electorate, introduce an online disclosure platform and shorten the timeframe for making donations public from one year to every three months.
Attorney General John Quigley talked up the original bill in introducing it to Parliament in 2020.
“Voters have a right to know as much as possible about candidates and political parties before polling day, including who is funding them,” he said.
“Tightening the rules around financial disclosure will give voters greater confidence in the Western Australian electoral process.”
In addition to donation laws reform, former premier Mark McGowan committed to “gold standard transparency” but famously added a caveat to that promise while being cross-examined during his Clive Palmer defamation case last year.
“Gold standard transparency doesn’t apply to every single thing you do,” he told the Federal Court.
The Labor Government has come under continued scrutiny for its closeness to businesses through mountains of donated money and cash for access forums such as the Labor business roundtable.
Organisations such as the Centre for Public Integrity have in the past urged the government to reform the donation system as soon as possible.
After his elevation to Labor leader Roger Cook said transparency was a hallmark of any Labor government.
“We will continue to make sure that we abide by all the expectations and obligations in relation to accountability as well,” he said.
“I think the people of Western Australia know that we have been a responsible and accountable government and that will continue under my leadership.”
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