Just before I was about to finally get my campaign finance paper released, the Queensland ALP rammed through its campaign finance amendments to their electoral act – forcing many revisions. (The Parliamentary Library’s summary is the easiest way in, if you want the detail.)

But far worse than my inconvenience, of course, is that after the changes in NSW this is the second successful assault on political freedom in the last 12 months. The Queensland and NSW laws are generally quite similar in capping expenditure and donations, but with two main exceptions.

The first is that Queensland has largely avoided the particularly appalling NSW complete bans on donors. There is no singling out of disfavoured industries for bans, and while foreign-sourced donations to political parties are banned (as they already were), they have not followed NSW’s lead in banning all non-citizens from donating.

However Queensland is worse than NSW in its regulation of third parties. This is because they have combined NSW-style caps on donors and spending with the federal regime of disclosure. The result is extraordinarily complex – even by the red tape standards of campaign finance law. Read the rest of this entry »