Tas Labor's Spending Caps Bill Kneecaps Independents

Tasmanian Labor wants to stop people from buying elections, but they're happy for independents to be senselessly outspent.  This is my conclusion from their Electoral Disclosure and Funding Amendment (Spending Limits) Bill 2026 (49 of 2026).  I'm not sure if they're trying to wedge the Liberals, wedge the independents, or if they actually really think what they've come up with here is fair for Tasmania; it's not.  

An issue of Hare-Clark spending caps having the potential to advantage parties over independents in a way that could inspire independents to create front parties to rort the funding caps is not new.  I raised it (and more in person) at the Tasmanian JSCEM inquiry into the Greens' Electoral Disclosure and Funding Amendment Bill 2024 (No. 9) just a couple of years ago. In that case I pointed out that a proposed spending cap of $83,000 for independents and $830,000 for parties created a perverse incentive for big-spending independents to register front parties in order to avoid the lower spending cap.  

I noted also that lifting a dollars-per-candidate model from the ACT was not a good idea for Tasmania, especially because parties in Tasmania tend to run filler candidates to get their list to seven for formality reasons, while minor parties in the ACT don't need to do that.   There is also another important difference between the ACT and Tasmania - ACT parties run five candidates per electorate, not seven.  

So what does Tasmanian Labor do?  They come along with a Bill that has a spending cap of $60,000 for independents (in 2026 terms) and $1,750,000 for parties, of which a party can spend up to $525,000 on campaigning directed at a particular electorate.  

Overall, Labor's Bill does seem closely modelled on the ACT's spending caps.  It is slightly more generous to independents in some ways in terms of allowing them 1.2 times the spending cap per party candidate, and also because it has a limit on party spending per electorate.  However the ACT is an inappropriate model for Tasmania because its system discriminates hugely against pure independents.  A pure independent in the ACT cannot get their own ballot column no matter how popular they are and is lumped in the ungrouped column on the right of the ballot with other such independents.  With that and the spending cap laws, intending serious ACT indies now register front parties like Fiona Carrick Independents or form parties of quasi-independents with policies and preselections such as the former "Independents for Canberra". 

What is the problem being solved by Labor's Bill?  It seems there are two different rationales.  The first is the hobgoblin of someone being able to "buy an election".  The idea that particular elections in Tasmania have been "bought" is an election denial trope and conspiracy theory, "bought" being just a soft version of "stolen", that pops up here every few cycles.  It especially appears in connection with elections like 2006 and 2018 where the oppositions' losses were self-inflicted on policy and tactical grounds but there were also expensive non-party campaigns in favour of the government.  I don't think any Tasmanian elections ever have really been won by a party just because more money was spent on its behalf.  But at the moment there's a big concern that somebody will try it: One Nation.

Voters aren't actually sucked in by big-spending campaigns (by major or minor parties) that are bad.  Money helps when the campaign is saying something voters are actually receptive to, but maybe not as much as people think. The strongest argument for not letting a Clive Palmer spend megabucks on a Tasmanian election isn't that it actually works, it is that such overt spending is annoying in a way that makes people feel democracy is being laughed at. But let's say that Gina Rinhehart throwing $20 million at a One Nation Tasmanian campaign would be a big problem - fine.  Identify an amount of money that anyone but the most dogmatic libertarian would agree is way too much to spend on a Tasmanian election and ban anyone from spending more than that amount.  That problem's solved.

That concern in no way justifies limiting an independent to $60,000. There would be some amount that politics-watchers generally would agree is a silly amount for an independent to spend, and that amount would be several times lower than it would be for a party statewide.  But that amount would also be a lot higher than $60,000.  Indeed, a cap of $60,000 for an independent puts them on the same level as the Legislative Council's very restrictive spending caps given that the lower house seats are three times more populous.  And this is in an environment where there is expensive statewide party advertising everywhere.  

So the second idea here seems to be a general push for "getting money out of politics" by winding back what everyone is spending.  But that presumes that major parties and independents are overspending to a similar extent.  That might seem true and then some if one considers the major parties' spending on a per-candidate basis, but that's the wrong way to look at it, because there are so many uncompetitive, and in some cases blatant ticket-filler, party candidates.  Even if all a party's candidates were serious there are major economies of scale in promoting several candidates together compared to advertising a lone independent.  

The major parties and Greens always run full slates of candidates (at least) in each electorate because Tasmania's pointlessly strict formality rules mean that to run less invites your voters to not vote formally, and makes explaining what to do harder for the low-electoral-literacy end.  But on current vote shares a major party is no longer seriously competitive for more than four seats in one electorate, and even four is now uncommon.  Labor in particular had well-known problems filling out its slates of candidates for 2025.  

Why should a major party that on the best of days these days might yet scrape up 18 seats (in Labor's case, in the last two elections they won 10) have a spending cap that is just under thirty times that for a  sole independent?  Why should a party be able to outspend the indie by a factor of 8.75 in a particular electorate (at some detriment to its spending cap for others) if it is only seriously in the mix for two or three seats there - or in a minor party's case, maybe just one?

Here my concern is not only with giving the indies a fair go to whatever extent spending actually matters, but also with avoiding perverse incentives for ballot paper clutter.  There are already way too many unnecessary candidates running in Tasmanian state elections.  The Braddon ballot in 2025 was especially excessive and confusing for voters and the TEC was extremely lucky to avoid having to print double-decker ballot papers in any division. Under the Bill as it stands any indie who wants to can simply circumvent Labor's spending caps by registering a front party and running a bunch of non-serious candidates alongside themselves just to boost how much money they can spend on getting themselves elected.  But some indies will prefer just to run by themselves, and I don't see why they should be disadvantaged.

In the 2025 election Peter George ran a non-party ticket with six likeminded independents, who were so low profile in the campaign that a hypothetical "recount" (casual vacancy countback) for George's seat would most likely see it go to the Greens.  Under this Bill if this group were to be registered as a party they would then have access to the same spending cap per candidate as other parties, and could in realistic terms spend whatever they liked.  

Labor's response to such concerns - well so far, failed ad hominems not only aimed at me but also Jack Milroy instead of tackling the substance!  Very strange indeed!  

With the numbers in the parliament the way they are, this may well actually get somewhere, even if the government opposes it.  Parties and candidates who in principle support caps are likely to have a majority in the lower house.  Caps of any kind could well be welcomed by the upper house where members have long been displeased by being subject to strict caps themselves while the lower house is not.  The Greens - who are potentially greatly advantaged in fighting with lone indies by this Bill (but will probably never have enough money to fully realise that) - have called it "great electoral reform".  So we may yet see deals done in which this gets passed with amendments, even if the Liberals oppose it.  Perhaps if the multiplier for lone independents was simply much higher - say, 2.5 instead of 1.2, then that would be enough to solve the problems.

At the very least I suggest this at some point be referred to Tasmanian JSCEM for an inquiry as was also done with the Greens' Bill.  But an alternative would be to refer the general question of finding fair spending caps with a term of reference that any solution must respect distinctive aspects of Tasmanian electoral culture.  

For information, the Bill also includes a spending cap of $75,000 statewide for third party campaigners and associated entities.  I may discuss that further later.