The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (the Committee) has released its report into the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017. The bill seeks to ban foreign donations to political parties, as well as introducing a compliance framework for organisations and charities that publicly advocate on policy issues regardless of whether these organisations receive foreign donations. The Committee made 15 recommendations including clarifying non-partisan issue based advocacy from political expenditure in support of respective parties. Many smaller charities could be unfairly affected by the need to comply with the extensive recordkeeping and disclosure requirements, such as monitoring donations in real-time for some non-profit groups. Find out more, view the submissions made to the Committee or read more recent media coverage on the issue.
