Tell the government to get corporate and third-party influence out of politics and end all large scale political donations.
Our democracy should not be for sale but right now the people we elect to govern us take money from those who stand to gain from government policy and contracts.
Small donations towards a political cause can be empowering and most importantly don’t have an undue influence on public policy. It’s time to restore faith in our political system – sign the petition to end corporate influence.
Dear Prime Minister, State Premiers and Territory Chief Ministers,
You work for us – end large scale political donations and ban all corporate and third-party political donations.
28,078 have joined this campaign – help us get to 30,000.
We have achieved 93.59% of our goal. Let’s keep going!
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Political Donations
What we’re calling for
We think it’s time to get the undue influence of big donors out of our democracy. Four principles underlie this campaign:
Only individuals should be allowed to donate to political parties.
Donating is a great form of political expression – but it shouldn’t be an expense required to gain access. When corporations and other organisations donate large sums to political parties it makes the rest of us feel that we can’t trust our elected representatives – after all ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’. If people really are passionate about contributing to a party, they would still be able to do so under their own name.
Increase transparency requirements.
We also need to increase transparency of individual donations to make sure corporate money isn’t being funneled through individual donations instead. This means individual donors who give more than a certain threshold (we propose $500) would have to disclose the name of their employer.
Cap individual donations at a reasonable limit.
Donating is a legitimate means of political engagement – GetUp is a great example of that. But there should be reasonable limits. Individual donations should be capped at $1,000 a year to prevent anyone having undue influence on our representatives.
Increase public funding of political parties.
Parties have become reliant on big donors to fund their campaigns and operation. If we are to eliminate the influence of corporate donations on politics, more public funding will have to be provided to parties. Depending on the system used and the level of funding, this is estimated to cost in the vicinity of $30 million dollars. This may sound like a lot, but international studies have shown that public funding has a positive effect on political competitiveness and decision-making. Given that the policies and private contracts our politicians oversee add up to tens of billions of dollars, we think paying a little more to make sure those decisions are free from undue influence is a good investment.
The legislation required to make this happen will require a lot of thought and research – but the principles are simple. Caps on political donations are working well in other democracies around the world and we deserve no less in Australia.
More information
Check out our FAQ here for more information about this campaign.