The Victorian government is being urged to strengthen its rules around political donations, election advertising and lobbying ahead of the November poll.
The Centre for Public Integrity on Friday released a discussion paper titled Integrity inadequacies: Victoria, which details how the state’s frameworks are falling short when compared to other jurisdictions.
It said that despite substantial improvements to Victoria’s donations laws introduced in 2018, which require donations over $1,050 to be disclosed and capped at $4,210 over four years, the definition is too narrow.
Catherine Williams, research director at the Centre for Public Integrity, said payments made at fundraising events were captured by the definition of political donation, but attendance fees were not.
“For instance, there may be a dinner where an MP is the headline act and it costs thousands of dollars to attend, but we know that running that dinner doesn’t cost thousands of dollars,” Williams said.
“The difference between the cost of running the event and the fee needs to be explicitly captured as a donation. That’s how they do it in New South Wales.”
Victoria’s political donation laws also excluded gifts between registered parties and their “nominated entities”, Williams said.
The independent thinktank is also calling on the government to introduce a cap on election spending, as is the case in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.
The Victorian government has committed to a review of the issue, but that will not take place until after the 26 November election.
“We need to level the playing field in relation to elections,” Williams said. “We need to ensure that the ability of candidates to access the electorate is not directly proportionate to their resources. The only way to do that is via the imposition of expenditure caps.
“This would also have the benefit of reducing the reliance on donations too.”
The state’s lobbying framework was also described as “weak” in the report.
In Victoria, ministers and cabinet secretaries can take up lobbying work after 18 months of leaving parliament, while parliamentary secretaries, and executives and staffers can do so in 12 months. But this rule only applies to those who meet the definition of “Government Affairs Director”.
Meanwhile, the only penalty lobbyists face for non-complication is de-registration, whereas some other states issue fines and others can pursue criminal prosecution.
Ministerial diaries, which show who they have met with, are not published in Victoria, and if a minister is found to have breached their code of conduct, it is a matter left to the premier to enforce.
“It’s the same at a federal level, where the code of conduct is only enforceable by the prime minister,” Williams said. “But of course, what premier or prime minister would have an interest in encoding a ministerial code if that would result in attention being drawn to the wrongdoing of its members of government?”
Williams said Victoria’s Independent Broad‑based Anti‑corruption Commission has a much more limited jurisdiction than its counterpart in NSW, which has broad powers to investigate any allegation upon suspicion of corruption.
This includes alleged substantial breaches of the ministerial and MP codes of conduct.
“That’s why Gladys Berejiklian ended up before the Icac, it was because of an allegation of a substantial breach of the ministerial code. That couldn’t happen in Victoria,” she said.
