Australia to Limit Election Donations to $600,000, Mandate Real-Time Disclosures by 2028

The Australian federal government is hoping to end the “arms race” of election spending by introducing caps for parties, candidates, and donors.
Donations will be disclosed in almost real-time, and the threshold at which they must be reported will be significantly reduced.
The changes would not affect the 2025 federal election but instead, come into force in 2028.
And that looks likely to happen, as Labor plans to introduce the new rules in Parliament on Nov. 18 and hopes to have them passed within two weeks.
Further, candidates and parties would have to reveal their funders roughly two weeks after the end of a calendar month; which changes to weekly once an election campaign begins; and then daily during the seven days leading up to polling day and the seven days after.
For example, a donor could theoretically donate $20,000 to one candidate, and $20,000 to another.
Yet one consideration is any donor with the financial heft normally sends large amounts directly to the party, which is then distributed at their discretion.
Those who succeed in gaining more than 4 or more percent of the primary vote—whether or not they win—will see their payment from the public purse increased from the $2.914 per vote paid at the time of the last election, to $5.00.
The total cost to the taxpayer could increase from $75 million to as high as $129 million.
“While a new independent would have to comply with a $800,000 spending cap, it appears that each political party can spend $90 million, shifting that money around to support any member who is being threatened by a newcomer,” she said in a statement.
The relatively high limits set by the current proposal are likely in anticipation of a legal challenge from Palmer, who donated almost all of those funds himself, which he will be unable to repeat with the new $600,000 cap.
On the other hand, the Liberal-National Coalition, which spent $132 million, and Labor, which spent $116 million, would also be curtailed, but only to $90 million.