Echo
NetDaily, 29
May 2018:
Nationals MLC Ben
Franklin has defended new political donation laws after being accused by the
Greens of ramming it through last Thursday night and providing only a week for
the opposition to digest.
The new rules, say the
Greens, will see ‘third party’ groups like unions, GetUp, Sea Shepherd and
World Wildlife Fund see their spending caps halved to $500,000.
Additionally the new
laws apply to local councils, where some will be able to spend more per voter
than others, the party says.
Yet the Electoral
Funding Bill 2018 ‘includes some positive measures’, including ‘the definition
of prohibited donors, increased transparency and some spending caps in local
government election’.
Ballina Greens MP Tamara
Smith described the new laws as ‘the most undemocratic ever seen in the state’.
‘Community groups like
GetUp, Sea Shepherd, World Wildlife Fund and Marriage Equality have had their
funding caps slashed while the old parties have given themselves a massive
windfall in both money to run elections and money received after elections,’ Ms
Smith told The Echo.
‘The Greens have led the
charge when it comes to supporting caps on electoral expenditure but we say
that if third party environmental and social justice groups have had their
spending halved why haven’t political parties?’ she added.
The
Guardian, 23
May 2018:
The legislation would
cap campaign spending by an advocacy group at $500,000 during the lead-up to an
election, down from the current limit of up to $1.288m, which applies to both
major political parties and third-party groups.
Major parties would keep
the higher cap on communications spending. The caps operate from 1 October in
the year before an election until election day.
The 22 Liberal, Nationals, Shooters,
Fishers and Farmers and Christian Democratic
party members
of the NSW Legislative Council
voting for NSW Electoral Funding Bill 2018 on 23 May 2018 were as follows:
Amato,
L
|
Blair,
N
|
Borsak,
R
|
Brown,
R
|
Clarke,
D
|
Colless,
R
|
Cusack,
C
|
Fang,
W
|
Farlow,
S
|
Franklin,
B
|
Green,
P
|
Harwin,
D
|
Khan,
T
|
MacDonald,
S
|
Maclaren-Jones,
N
|
Mallard,
S
|
Martin,
T
|
Mason-Cox,
M
|
Mitchell,
|
Nile,
F
|
Phelps,
P
|
Ward,
P
|
||
Which resulted in the bill officially passing in both houses of the NSW Parliament on 24 May 2018.
