In a brazen move that reeks of self-preservation, Australia’s declining Labor and Liberal parties have joined forces behind closed doors to ram through sweeping changes to electoral laws. The proposed legislation, unveiled mere weeks before Parliament’s year-end recess, appears cunningly crafted to entrench the major parties’ dominance while kneecapping the rising tide of independents and minor parties that voters are increasingly turning to.
Collusion Cloaked as Reform
Billed as an “electoral reform” package, the 224-page bill is a Byzantine labyrinth of caps on donations and spending, bolstered by a massive infusion of taxpayer funds to line incumbents’ war chests. Special Minister of State Don Farrell has been trumpeting the importance of bipartisan support, begging the question: when Liberals and Labor see eye-to-eye on so little, why the sudden kumbaya on this?
Independent MP Kate Chaney, who has commendably committed to real-time disclosure of all donations, smells a rat. “We don’t let Coles and Woolies make laws about supermarket competition, but here we are seeing the Labor and Liberal parties shaping laws about political competition,” she astutely observed. The unseemly process itself should trigger alarm bells.
The Fine Print Favors Incumbents
Proponents argue the bill’s complexity justifies the 11th-hour bum’s rush, insisting they’ll generously allow a whole fortnight for “scrutiny” with no formal inquiry before ramming it through. But a cursory dive into the details reveals what a raw deal upstarts are getting compared to entrenched party players:
- Challengers’ $800K spending cap has to cover everything. But party incumbents can exempt offices, staff, communications, and party ads that conveniently omit candidates’ names.
- Parties can shuffle portions of their $90M cap from unwinnable seats to shore up threatened ones. Heads they win, tails you lose.
Voters to Bankroll Political Ads They Hate
In a transparently titled ploy, a massive hike in public funding will see parties and incumbents reap $5 per vote (up from $2.91) based on their last election showing, plus a $30K “admin fee” per MP. As one disgusted political observer noted:
Parties can spend nothing in the unwinnable seats, but still get a decent number of votes. They can actually make a profit out of taxpayers in unwinnable seats and shift that spending to contestable seats.
In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, jamming through a bill that sluices more public money into politicians’ pockets to saturate the airwaves with ads is a recipe for voter revulsion. A similar gambit in 2013 sparked such outrage that it had to be abandoned. But wait, there’s less!
Transparency Theater
The “transparency” provisions are window dressing at best. Sure, voters should know who’s funding campaigns before they go to the polls. But in a cute bit of misdirection, even if this bill blasts through Parliament faster than a nuclear sub, those pesky disclosure rules wouldn’t kick in until July 2026. Why the rush on the self-serving bits, but foot-dragging on the public interest parts?
Put the Brakes on the Steamroller
At a bare minimum, a bill of this magnitude and moment deserves robust committee scrutiny with public input to soberly assess the consequences, both intended and otherwise, for the fundamental functioning of our democracy. Hustling it through in a last-minute, year-end legislative lightning strike is a cynical move unbecoming of any party that purports to be “of the people.”
If Labor and the Liberals want to staunch their bleeding to minor parties and independents, the solution is glaringly simple: Give voters better policies and leadership, not electoral law shenanigans to squelch competitors.
Lawmakers of conscience must slam the brakes on this runaway steamroller now, before it flattens our democracy for generations. Voters will decide if this desperate ploy is the death rattle of major parties cravenly clinging to power, or a last-gasp wake-up call to lift their game to earn the public trust they’ve so badly squandered.
