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Hidden money: lack of transparency in political donations erodes the democracy that parties are elected to protect.

Publication: Arena Magazine
Publication Date: 01-JUN-05 		Format: Online
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Full Article Title: Hidden money: lack of transparency in political donations erodes the democracy that parties are elected to protect.(Against the Current)(extract from report at www.democracy4sale.org)(Excerpt)

Article Excerpt
People or groups who donate to political parties are currently required to report the donation if it is over $1500--a barrier against hidden donations and lack of accountability, right? Wrong. In fact the rules on political donations are full of holes.

For a start, the $1500 is not cumulative--at least as far as reporting by the party receiving the donation goes. Over the course of a year, a party could receive $1499 a number of times from a donor, and have no obligation to report it.

Donors are required to report donations which reach a cumulative total of more than $1500. However this is poorly enforced. Approximately 50 per cent of donors never submit the required forms.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) writes to donors who fail to submit forms, but there is little they can do to force compliance. According to Kathy Mitchell of the AEC, the last time a donor was fined for either lodging a false return or not lodging a return was in the mid 1990s. As donors hear of this there is even less incentive to file donors' forms.

Concern over the impact of donations on government decisions led us to commence a...

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