PM in secretive push for mass “donations” censorship

EXCLUSIVE

ANTHONY KLAN

The Albanese Government is attempting to enshrine in law the biggest censorship of political “donations” information in the nation’s history, citing “privacy”.

The Australian Electoral Commission — with no public consultation — has pulled tens of thousands of “donor returns” from public access, despite being legally required to publish them under law that has been in place for over a century.

The Klaxon’s revelations of the mass censorship have drawn widespread community outrage.

It can now be revealed the Federal Government is seeking to enshrine the AEC’s historic censorship into law, by permanently banning the public from accessing the transparency documents.

The changes are found deep inside the Albanese Government’s highly-complex 227-page Electoral Reform Bill, which it rushed through the lower house within just 48 hours of it making it public.

The Bill — which has drawn deep criticism from experts — is now before the Senate, which sits over two weeks from today, for likely the last time before the federal election.

The AEC’s political donations scheme, which currently requires the disclosure of donations over $16,300, is regularly gamed by “donors”, including by splitting up payments and by using shell companies and obscure PO boxes to mask the true source of the payments.

The ALP’s Bill would reduce the disclosure threshold to $1,000, but by hiding all disclosure returns from the public, would substantially reduce transparency of the entire system overall.

“The ALP’s Bill would vastly reduce transparency of the system overall”

The Klaxon’s revelations Sunday. Source: The Klaxon

Disclosure returns, which the AEC says it is “required by legislation to publish”, have been available to the public for decades.

The forms are essential for determining the true source of many payments, given many people share the same name, but particularly where donors have made the payments via shell companies and obscure PO box addresses.

The returns were essential in determining the true bankrollers of the “No” campaign against the Indigenous Voice.

The ALP’s plans to hide the returns appear on page 157 of the Bill.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 would be changed, requiring the Government to only publish a subset of the information from the returns — minus the vital “address” information — on the AEC’s Transparency Register, which the AEC can change at any time.

All references to “returns” would be stripped from the Commonwealth legislation and replaced with the term “return information”.

“In all cases the term ‘return’ will be stripped from the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and replaced by ‘return information’.”

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Proposed changes to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, hiding all returns from the public. Source: Page 157, Electoral Reform Bill

Further, in sweeping changes, the changes would allow the Electoral Commissioner — who is appointed by the government of the day and runs the AEC — to “redact or remove personal information” despite that information being “required to be published”, even under the new law.

“Despite subsection (1), the Electoral Commissioner may…redact or remove personal information (within the meaning of the Privacy Act 1998) required to be published in item 4 or 5 of the table in subsection (1) from the register,” the Bill states.

“Sweeping changes allow the AEC to ‘redact’ information despite it required to be published under the law”

Further, the Electoral Commissioner can unilaterally decide “not to include information on the register” if they are “satisfied” that the publication “places, or would place” the “personal safety of a person at risk”.

There are no stipulations as to what constitutes “at risk”, and no criteria or restrictions around how the Electoral Commissioner — not in the role as a security expert — makes this decision.

The now hidden electoral donations data was vital in establishing the true donors behind the Voice “No” campaign. Source: The Klaxon

As previously reported, the AEC has hidden the tens of thousands of donor disclosure forms under the excuse of an unrelated, five-year-old AEC error that saw it disclose the postal addresses of a handful of electoral candidates who were “silent” from the electoral role.

The AEC pulled the Transparency Register and all donor returns on May 15 last year, citing the 2019 incident.

It made the register accessible again two months later, on July 23, but all disclosure forms had been removed.

In a process often taking it weeks, the AEC is providing the public with donor returns on request — as required by law — but only after it has blacked out all “address” details provided.

Part of the now heavily redacted donor return for  anti-Voice group “Advance”. The return (previously unredacted) would be hidden entirely under the new law. Source: AEC (2024)

The AEC made the historic changes without any public consultation.

The AEC has said it did so because of “a number of privacy factors” but has repeatedly refused to comment when asked what the “privacy factors” around the donor disclosure forms were.

Also essential to determining the true source and value of donations are “amendment forms”, which are regularly filed by entities to correct “mistakes” in their original donor disclosure forms.

These forms would also be hidden from the public under the proposed new law.

Without any public consultation the AEC is now only releasing heavily redacted donor returns. Part of a donor return for “Advance”. Source: AEC (2024)

Beyond hiding electoral returns from the public, the proposed changes have been heavily criticised as rigging total donations limits against independents and in favour of the ALP and Coalition.

The Centre for Public Integrity, Transparency International, and many others have called for the Bill to be scrapped in its current form.

The Bill has been fiercely opposed by independents and the Greens.

The ALP and Coalition voted down calls for the Bill to be put to a parliamentary for review, as is standard practice.

That’s despite there being no rush to implement the law, which would only become effective from mid-2016.

It’s also despite the Albanese Government describing the changes as the biggest electoral reforms in 40 years.

Support for the ALP and Coalition has been in long-term decline and is at its lowest point in history.

The New York Times has described Australia as potentially “the world’s most secretive democracy”.

Between 2012 and 2022 no other OECD country fell faster towards corruption than Australia, according to Transparency International.

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Anthony Klan

Editor, The Klaxon