The political donations that fund election campaigns can introduce a conflict between the financial interests of political parties, and their assessment of the national interest in policy making. This submission argues that publishing timely information about larger donors is an important public check on this conflict. And we recommend going further to introduce an electoral expenditure cap, which would reduce the influence of money in politics and the incentive to chase more donations.

Further detail about the need for and nature of these reforms is provided in our 2018 Grattan Institute report, Who’s in the room? Access and influence in Australian politics.

Download the submission

Kate Griffiths

Chief of Staff and Democracy Deputy Program Director
Kate Griffiths is Grattan Institute’s Chief of Staff and Deputy Program Director of the Democracy program. Kate completed her Masters in Science at the University of Oxford as a John Monash Scholar and holds an Honours degree in Science from the Australian National University.

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