Tasmanian Electoral Reform and A Current Electoral Amendment Bill

There has been much discussion of the progress, or lack thereof, of electoral reform in Tasmania in recent weeks.  Most of this discussion has focused on donation law reform issues including disclosure requirements, possible donation caps and potentially public spending. These matters were addressed in the Electoral Act Reform Report, which was reportedly completed in December 2019 but remains unreleased.  Premier Gutwein has stated that the progress on electoral reform is not a priority for the government at the moment because it is occupied with coronavirus-related challenges.  

There is still (barring an early election, regarding which speculation has declined) plenty of time for reforms to House of Assembly donations processes to be passed prior to an expected March 2022 election, should the parliament choose to do so.  (My broad view is that donation reform before that election - to increase both the range and timeliness of required disclosures - would be extremely desirable as the current requirements are far too lax, but that spending caps require very careful consideration to avoid the errors of a previous attempt.)

Submission To Tasmanian Electoral Act Review

Initial submissions to the review of the Tasmanian Electoral Act close today.  The review was mainly prompted by issues raised (mostly during the state election, but also during previous state elections) concerning:

* authorisations for social media posts

* restrictions preventing naming candidates without their permission in certain kinds of material

* restrictions preventing newspaper coverage on election day

* lack of state-specific donation requirements

* issues with involvement of non-party actors in the electoral process (the call for submissions singles out unions, though in 2018 there was far more concern about gambling interests)

What Happened When The Previous Government Moved To Change Tasmania's Donation Laws

I have used the word "moved" instead of "tried" in the title of this piece. There is a reason for that.

Tasmania's lax political donation and disclosure laws have become a major controversy in the Tasmanian election campaign (see guide), with the Greens threatening to move a no-confidence motion against the Hodgman government unless it discloses the campaign donations funding what seems to be a very expensive campaign.  References have been made to failed attempts to reform campaign donations in the last days of the previous Labor-Green government, with Labor saying simply that the Liberals blocked them.  So I thought I'd refresh my memory, and then that of anyone reading, concerning what actually happened there.