Electoral Funding, Donations & Disclosure Policy Summary
Stopping donations distorting democracy
Donations from large corporations to political parties erode the Australian democratic process.
Corporations, organisations and individuals donate money to political parties. The parties use the donations to fund their election campaigns and day-to-day activities.
What the big corporate donors get in return is access to politicians. They sit with them at fundraising dinners and they meet with them at Parliament House. This distorts the democratic process because it gives people and corporations with money the opportunity to buy influence that the average person cannot afford.
Politicians from the major parties are constantly making decisions on issues affecting organisations that have made massive donations to their campaigns or their party. The big donors include:
- property developers. NSW has badly biased planning laws that put developer greed ahead of community needs;
- clubs and hotels. Gaming machines continue to wreck lives; and
- banks and finance corporations. The NSW government continues to hand out lucrative Public Private Partnerships.
The Greens NSW do not accept donations from corporations.
Greens MPs have been campaigning to put an end to the subversion of democracy banning corporate donations and improving public disclosure and accountability.
The Greens are committed to:
- prohibiting political donations from corporations;
- adequate, fair and transparent public funding of all elections;
- prompt and transparent disclosure of all donations on a public website maintained by the electoral office;
capping political donations at $10,000 per individual per year unless the individual is a member of the political party.
- introducing legislation to prevent retiring members of parliament entering employment for two years with any private organisation that could obtain an unfair advantage.
