Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill 2024

The majority voted in favour of a motion to agree with the bill and so pass it in the Senate with amendments. In parliamentary jargon they voted to read the bill for a third time.

Because new amendments were agreed to in the Senate, the bill will now have to return to the House of Representatives, where are our MPs will decide whether they agree to the changes.

What does this bill do?

According to the bills digest (which is a document prepared by the parliamentary library):

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill 2024 (the Bill) amends the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984 to reform Australia’s Commonwealth electoral processes, with the aim of enhancing ‘the integrity of federal elections through improved transparency and accountability.’

Key reforms in the Bill include:

• lower disclosure threshold for political donations ($1,000, from a current threshold of $16,900)

• new caps on how much donors can give to individual parties or candidates ($20,000) and in total ($640,000) each calendar year

• new caps on how much parties ($90 million nationally, capped at $800,000 within each electoral division) and independent candidates ($800,000 within each electoral division) may incur in electoral expenditure in House of Representatives campaigns

• new caps on how much parties (proportional to the number of House of Representatives divisions in each State or Territory, up to $9,200,000 in New South Wales) and independent candidates (one sixth of the party cap in each State) may incur in electoral expenditure in Senate campaigns

• new administrative funding for parties and incumbent independent members to offset compliance costs and increased public funding for candidates who receive more than 4 per cent of first-preference votes at federal elections.