The plan by the main political parties to award themselves large amounts of taxpayers’ money showed such naked self-interest that the public awoke from its general indifference to campaign finance law, and forced the Liberals to withdraw their support.

But there was an underlying political logic behind the Liberal position. They were trying deal with a bill to lower the donation disclosure threshold from $12,000 to $1,000 that has already passed the House of Representatives and could still pass the Senate before the election. They feared that this would have a disproportionate effect on their supporters, who for social, employment, business or political reasons don’t want their names appearing on the AEC website. Labor’s main financial backers, the unions, are obviously quite open about their support.

Labor’s problem is less that their supporters don’t want their names disclosed than that too few people want to give them money under any circumstances. Hence their plan for so-called ‘administrative funding’ to finance them year-to-year. They offered the Liberals a higher disclosure threshold in exchange for this taxpayer-financed bail-out. The deal was done, but has now been broken.

Now Julia Gillard is threatening to go back to the original bill. I wrote a lengthy critique of it back in 2011. Around that time I also wrote op-eds that more briefly explain some of the issues:

* why the idea that a $1,000 threshold is needed to stop undue influence is ridiculous; the only plausible purpose of such a law is to deter donors;

* the xenophobic attempts to restrict the influence of ‘foreigners’;

* and the unjustifiable measures to harass NGOs.

There is almost nothing to be said in favour of this bill, and it would be sad day for Australian democracy if it is passed.

I had hoped that Labor’s long-stalled campaign finance reforms would be left behind in the rush of legislation before the election. But that has proved to be an over-optimistic view, and media reports this morning suggest that they have done a deal with the Coalition to get an amended version of the legislation through.

Essentially, it looks like the parties are awarding themselves more public funding and reducing the donations disclosure threshold from $12,100 to $5,000. Labor had wanted to lower the disclosure threshold to $1,000. While I don’t think there is any need to change the disclosure threshold, $5,000 is certainly a lot better than $1,000.

Apart from the problems around disclosure, the threshold is (for no obvious reason) used for other purposes in the legislation, such as the total amount of spending required for third parties to have to enter the campaign finance system. If they spend more than the threshold, they face complex reporting requirements.

Here I think $5,000 is too low, even on the arguments put by advocates of tighter campaign finance laws. Small-scale activism leading to a $5,000 spend on election issues poses no plausible threat to the integrity of government or to political fairness. To the contrary, having the AEC harass minor activists reduces political fairness.

One of my main interests in campaign finance law has been the increasing attempts by political parties to limit ‘third party’ opposition. Governments dislike the campaigns being run against them by interest and issue groups, and since 2006 a series of laws have been passed to obstruct or discourage third party political activity.

Queensland went down this path in 2011, introducing laws restricting political donations from and to third parties, and limiting their spending during campaign periods.

And now there is a new attempt to impose yet more controls. This time the Queensland government proposes using industrial rather than electoral law to implement its policy. This means that it will affect unions and employer associations, but not other third parties. In practice, unions and business tend to be the biggest-spending third parties.

If this bill passes, Queensland unions and employer groups will have to run Electoral Commission ballots if they want to engaged in political expenditure of $10,000 or more in a year. The political expenditure is defined broadly to inlcude a political cause of belief, and not just partisan campaigning (full definition below the fold). Presumably this would cover routine unions campaigns such as those currently being run by the Queensland Council of Unions.

For the expenditure to be approved, 50% of eligible voters must cast a ballot, and of those more than 50% must approve. The cost of the ballot has to be covered by the organisation proposing the expenditure.

Effectively this law imposes huge decision costs on unions and employer groups, since especially mass membership groups like unions will have to spend a lot just informing their membership of the issues. Otherwise, they are unlikely to get the 50% turnout required. The inevitable (and presumably intended) result is that there will be many fewer third party campaigns in Queensland.

The bill is supported by the minister with the usual rhetoric about transparency and accountability. But members of political organisations do not necessarily want to be involved in the detail of campaigns or activism. Joining is an act of delegation, paying others to sort out the detail of a cause or interest the member supports.

Political campaigns are normal business for unions and employer groups. If their members are unhappy with these campaigns they can say so, and vote out the leadership or leave the organisation if they are not satisfied with the leadership’s response. This is all the accountability that is required.

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