Don Farrell has signalled that Labor could soften the impact of political spending and donation caps on charities and fundraising bodies like Climate 200 to achieve transparency without harming democratic participation.
Despite Farrell confirming that the government’s proposed $1,000 donation disclosure threshold and real-time disclosure have “got to apply to everybody”, the special minister of state promised to consider unintended consequences of spending and donation caps.
On Monday the joint standing committee on electoral matters recommended that the Albanese government legislate political donation and spending caps, and truth-in-political advertising laws.
Despite the Coalition’s warnings against the caps, Farrell told Guardian Australia he would engage the crossbench, Greens and opposition because he believed “the best electoral reforms come with the widest level of support from the political parties”.
Farrell said in addition to transparency around donations the government “can’t allow our electoral system to be held hostage by rich people”.
“It can’t only be rich people who can afford to run and fund electoral campaigns,” he said, citing Clive Palmer’s $117m spending at the last election.
“We want to make sure that ordinary Australians have an opportunity to run and to be elected. And so you’ve got to have some mechanism to control just how much people can spend.”
The independent MP Kate Chaney, a member of the committee who received support from fundraising body Climate 200 to enter parliament, said there was a “significant risk” that changes could entrench the two-party system.
“I get it, that people don’t want to see big money in elections, but they also want to know that they’ve got a choice, and the reality is it’s expensive to, you know, get your name out there … [and] what you stand for. So I think there are some real challenges.”
Asked whether the donation cap could harm fundraising bodies like Climate 200, which raised $13m from 11,200 donors and funded selected community candidates’ campaigns, Farrell said “we’re happy to have a look at any concerns”.
“We don’t want to reduce participation in the democratic process, what we want to do is ensure transparency, and I’m sure there’s a balance there where we can achieve both of those objectives.”
The Climate 200 executive director, Byron Fay, said the current arrangements made it difficult for newcomers to compete against MPs.
“Australia’s federal electoral funding system provides MPs with literally hundreds of millions in public funding to help retain their seats, but there are no arrangements to help outsiders have a fighting chance against this system,” Fay said.
“It’s great to see the government recognising the advantages of incumbency and the challenges faced by candidates outside the political establishment.”
Some stakeholders have warned that charities could be harmed by the changes, as unlike industry bodies which are funded by membership fees they are funded by donations so a cap could limit their ability to engage in advocacy.
The Australian Democracy Network executive director, Saffron Zomer, said the government must “avoid adverse outcomes” protecting “crucial advocacy work and parliamentary pluralism if our elections are to truly be fair, informed and open”.
Farrell said he and Labor had always been “very sympathetic to the issue of charities” in the past, promising to “discuss with them how we achieve our objective of greater transparency but don’t diminish the opportunity of community groups to participate in the political process”.
On Tuesday the Australian Capital Territory independent senator, David Pocock, renewed his push to expand the Senate by boosting territories’ representation to four or six senators, one-third or half the number in the states.
Farrell said there was a “discussion to be had”, noting that Australia’s population had increased by 10 million since parliament was last expanded in 1984 but noted the community “is not all that welcoming to increasing the number of politicians”.
He said the immediate priorities were the committee’s 15 recommendations including caps and truth-in-political advertising, with consideration of the size of parliament to follow.
But Farrell said that lowering the voting age to 16, as pushed by the Greens and MP Monique Ryan, was not an issue he believed needed to be dealt with between now and the next election.
