Australia’s two major political parties will more than double their public funding at the 2028 federal election to reap a combined $140m under the government’s proposed changes to electoral laws, according to the organisation which funded successful teal independent candidates at the 2022 election.
Climate 200 has calculated the likely increase in the amount the Labor and Liberal parties could claim in public funding at the 2028 election, after the proposed new system is slated to take effect.
As a result of the percentage of the vote they secured at the 2022 election, the two parties received a combined total of $57.4m in public funding. Electoral law provides that candidates receive a taxpayer-funded per-dollar amount for every legal first-preference vote they attract, beyond a minimum threshold of 4% of formal votes cast.
Climate 200 estimates that if the proposed changes to electoral funding are legislated and in place by the 2028 election, the two parties could expect to receive 2.44 times as much, with the forecast windfall increasing by $82.66m to $140.01m. This includes an estimated $16.53m in new administrative support funding.
The organisation based its calculations on the Reserve Bank of Australia’s inflation projections, the current trajectory of first-preference voting for the two biggest parties and the proposed rate of public funding per eligible vote.
Under the Commonwealth Electoral Act, registered political parties receive a dollar amount for every legal first-preference vote they receive once they pass the 4% minimum. The per-vote rate is indexed to inflation and, at the 2022 election, was $2.914.
Currently, the rate sits at $3.35 per eligible vote. Under the government’s proposed changes, the rate would rise to $5. On top of that, registered parties would receive another $30,000 per MP and $15,000 per senator in “administrative” funding.
The government will rush its electoral reform legislation into parliament on Monday after the special minister of state, Don Farrell, unveiled details of the proposed changes late last week. He denied the plans were designed to target Climate 200’s founder, Simon Holmes à Court, and the mining magnate and former MP Clive Palmer.
“This is designed to take big money out of Australian politics,” Farrell said on Friday. “We’re not targeting individuals, we’re targeting the system that allows an uncapped amount of money to be spent on elections. We don’t want to go down the track of the American election system. We want to cap the amount of money people can spend and that applies to anybody.”
Holmes à Court told Guardian Australia the reforms “won’t get money out of politics”.
“In fact, they increase public funding by 2.4 times, biased heavily to go the ALP and the Coalition, entrenching the duopoly,” he said. “Why are the majors trying to ram it through? Legislation this fundamental to our democracy demands scrutiny.”
The proposed changes include caps on federal election campaign spending of $90m per party and $800,000 per individual candidate, with separate state and territory caps determined by size. Associated entities which engage in political campaigning but are not running candidates will face an $11m limit.
Incoming donations would also be capped.
