Opinion & Commentary
Campaign bans muzzle debate
Should the people behind the Say Yes Australia campaign for a carbon tax be able to spend as much as they like on their cause?
That's the kind of question being considered by a new federal parliamentary review of political campaign spending, quietly set up a few weeks ago. If they follow the precedents recently set in NSW and Queensland, the answer will be no, at least not during a campaign period. And people who fund the campaign will face significant new restrictions on how much they can donate.
Say Yes Australia is what campaign finance law calls a third-party campaign. Third-party rules apply to groups campaigning on an issue but not standing for office. Until late last year they had some disclosure requirements on donations but no prohibitions. Now, in two states, they face far more onerous restrictions than political parties.
NSW was the first to change its rules. It has introduced wide-ranging restrictions on political activity, including limiting third-party campaigns to just more than $1 million in the six months before an election. Political parties can spend more than $9m if they contest all seats. Third parties can receive no more than $2000 a year from any one donor if the money is for campaign spending. Political parties can receive up to $5000 a donor. And NSW also bans a range of people and organisations from donating at all to political parties or third parties. People living in NSW with permanent residency migration status can no longer financially support political parties or causes if the money would go towards a state campaign.
Queensland is more sensitive to the political rights of non-citizens, though it does prohibit foreign-sourced donations. However, its statewide third-party spending cap, rushed through parliament last month, is just $500,000, or less than 20c a voter, in the campaign period that starts two years after the previous election. It's no match for the more than $11m that political parties can spend. As in NSW, the donations cap is $5000 for political parties but only $2000 for third parties.
To compound the imbalance between political and third parties, the NSW and Queensland parliaments voted themselves generous increases in public campaign funding. Third parties get nothing but bans and bureaucracy.
In the theory of campaign finance reform, third parties are collateral damage rather than a main target. If restrictions on donations and campaign spending applied only to political parties, then front third parties would proliferate to evade the law. But, in reality, third parties are being targeted by nervous political parties.
The Liberal Party remains traumatised by the anti-Work Choices campaign, with some of its members sympathetic to laws that would prevent future big union campaigns. The Labor Party buckled in the face of a mining industry campaign against its resources rent tax. Sensing the government's weakness to these campaigns, the pokies industry threatened its own big-dollar anti-government campaign, though this fizzled out.
Political parties understandably dislike large campaigns against them. But to cap the funding and spending of third parties undermines the rights of individuals to organise in support of their political views, and upsets the checks and balances of the liberal-democratic system.
In the Work Choices case, the government had legislated against the perceived interests of millions of Australians. The public should have every right to express their grievances loudly and forcefully. If the government plans to take billions of dollars from the mining industry, they too should be entitled to communicate their objections to the Australian people. Similarly, the backers of Say Yes Australia should be allowed to make their views known.
The alternative view - though this is only implied - is that governments should be allowed to do whatever they want, without others being able to organise more than a token campaign say in the matter. Third-party laws seriously imbalance the political system in favour of governing parties.
Third-party campaigns are one of the checks and balances of a liberal democratic political system. It does not give groups affected by policy a veto on government policy, just the right to put their views to the electorate.
Nobody can know whether Say Yes Australia will turn around public opinion on a carbon tax.
The Australian people should decide this issue and not have it prejudged by politicians obstructing the fundraising and spending of third parties.
Andrew Norton is a Research Fellow with The Centre for Independent Studies. His report Democracy and Money: The Dangers of Campaign Finance Reform was released on 02 June 2011.
