The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, says he has no plans to change election funding laws, despite claims from Climate 200’s founder, Simon Holmes à Court, that they make it “nearly impossible” for an independent to successfully campaign.
According to Climate 200’s submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the November state election, sitting MPs received a significant “head start” during the campaign thanks to changes to the law introduced in 2018.
The changes – described by Andrews at the time they were introduced as the “strictest and most transparent political donation laws in Australia” – limit donations by individuals at $4,320 over four years and provide increased public funding to parties based on their first-preference votes.
Analysis by Climate 200 suggests public funding contributed more than $212m to the major parties over the last election cycle. This includes an increase in “per-vote public funding” that saw Labor receive $17m in public funding and the Coalition getting nearly $13.5m.
Sitting MPs also received $46m for electorate communications, which cannot be used for campaigning, but Climate 200 argues can be used to “raise the profile of the elected official”.
A special carve-out for the major parties – the exemption of “nominated entities” from the donation cap – also contributed at least $6.5m to Labor and Liberal coffers. Payments from these entities are also not subject to real-time transparency provisions.
Climate 200 argues major parties also have traditional, inherent advantages over independents, including “large well-funded, well-oiled, national machines behind them”, “well-established and widespread brand recognition” and a “high-profile existence for generations”.
“The head start and campaign funding carve-outs enjoyed by the major parties make it relatively straightforward for them to finance a campaign to defend a seat,” Holmes à Court and Climate 200’s executive director, Byron Fay, wrote in their submission.
“Meanwhile, the current rules make it nearly impossible for an independent challenger to mount a competitive campaign.
“This pushes our democracy towards a duopoly and unfairly deprives the community of representation. A healthy democracy should strive for a diversity of voices in parliament and should remove measures providing systemic advantage to incumbents. Significant reforms are warranted.”
Despite predictions of a “teal wave”, the number of independents in Victoria dropped at the November state election.
None of the Climate 200-backed candidates in the seats of Caulfield, Hawthorn or Kew won, despite the seats overlapping with the federal electorates of Goldstein and Kooyong, which were won by independents in May 2022.
Climate 200 has recommended a cap on public funds provided to the major parties, removing the carve-out for nominated entities and limiting on how much MPs can spend from their taxpayer-funded communication budget in the lead-up to elections.
But Andrews rebuffed calls for such change, describing the state’s system as “perfectly fair”.
“Our fundraising rules and our public funding rules lead our nation and other states and territories, and indeed the commonwealth, in my judgment, would do well to have similar arrangements in place,” Andrews said on Wednesday.
“It’s a very simple thing. The larger your vote, the larger the funding because the funding is provided per vote. So I think that’s a perfectly fair system.”
The electoral matters committee is set to begin public hearings later this year before reporting back to parliament by May 2024.
• This article was amended on 6 July 2023 to fix a transcribing mistake, which led an earlier version to incorrectly quote Daniel Andrews saying “funding isn’t provided per vote”; the premier said it is provided per vote.
