Funding and disclosure legislative changes
Updated: 26 February 2025
Legislative changes that impact the Commonwealth funding and disclosure scheme under Part XX of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Electoral Act) will be summarised on this page.
Funding and disclosure reforms in the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 2025
On 20 February 2025 the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 2025 received Royal Assent.
Important: The significant funding and disclosure reforms in the Electoral Reform Act will not commence until 1 July 2026.
The changes will not impact the 2025 federal election.
The legislation introduces significant reforms to the scheme, including:
- reducing the disclosure threshold to $5,000
- introducing expedited disclosure
- introducing donation and expenditure caps.
These legislative changes impact the Australian public and disclosure entities, and the AEC. The AEC will need to extensively prepare to implement new policy, processes, resourcing, tools, systems and technology to successfully deliver the significant changes required to administer the scheme.
The AEC will communicate with impacted disclosure entities and provide guidance and support leading up to, and following, commencement.
The legislation also introduced minor amendments that came into effect immediately.
The broad details of the significant reforms and the minor amendments are summarised below. Note, this is not an exhaustive list.
- Donations for a federal purpose that total greater than $5,000 will need to be disclosed.
- Indexation of the disclosure threshold occurs on each 1 January that follows a general election.
- Expedited disclosure: Introduces timely disclosure requirements for donations for a federal purpose over the disclosure threshold, with the time for reporting by a recipient depending on the proximity to an election.
- Election period begins on the day the writ is issued for an election and ends on polling day.
- Expedited notice period begins on the Saturday preceding polling day for an election and ends seven days after polling day
- A donation disclosure notice must be completed by political parties, members of Parliament, candidates, significant third parties, associated entities, nominated entities and third parties within 7 days during the election period and within 24 hours during the expedited notice period.
- Donors must complete a donation disclosure notice within 7 days during an election between the issue of writ and seven days after polling day.
- Outside of an election, donations must be reported by all entities and donors by the 21st day of the following month after the donation.
- Introduces an annual cap on donations for a federal purpose of $50,000. In a calendar year, a person/entity can donate up to $50,000 to a single recipient.
- The state/territory donation cap: a maximum of 5 times the annual cap (up to $250,000) can be donated in a single state/territory in a calendar year.
- The overall donation cap is 32 times the annual donation cap. In a calendar year a person/entity can donate no more than $1.6 million to multiple recipients.
- Donation recipients are: political parties, members of the House of Representatives, senators, candidates, significant third parties, associated entities, nominated entities and third parties.
- By-election donation cap: a maximum of the annual cap (up to $50,000) can be donated for a single by-election during the election.
- Senate-only elections donation cap: a maximum of the annual cap (up to $50,000) can be donated for a single Senate-only election during the election.
- A donation made for a by-election or a Senate-only election does not count towards the annual cap, state/territory cap, overall cap.
- Political parties, candidates, members of the House of Representatives, senators, significant third parties, associated entities, nominated entities and third parties are subject to caps on how much electoral expenditure they can incur in a calendar year.
- For the purposes of the expenditure caps, expenditure is aggregated across members of an expenditure group. The cap applies to the group’s total expenditure. An expenditure group is made up of the following:
- Core members including the political party (group owner), state branches, endorsed candidates, endorsed parliamentarians, nominated entities
- Other related branches, candidates, parliamentarians and nominated entities that are part of the group owner.
- Expenditure group expenditure caps:
- The totals below apply to a registered political party and members of its expenditure group
- Federal cap is set at a total of $90 million
- Divisional cap is set at $800,000
- Senate cap is a formula, multiplying the Senate base amount of $200,000 by the number of divisions in that state or territory.
- Significant third parties, associated entities and third parties are capped expenditure entities and also subject to expenditure caps:
- Total expenditure of $11.25 million
- Divisional limit of $100,000
- Senate cap is a formula, multiplying the Senate base amount of $25,000 by the number of divisions in that state or territory.
- Independent House of Representative candidates and members expenditure caps:
- Divisional cap is set at $800,000.
- Independent Senate candidate or senator expenditure caps:
- Independent Senate cap is a formula: multiplying the Senate base amount of $200,000 by the number of divisions in that state or territory and dividing the result by 6 for a state or by 2 for a territory.
- There are also caps that apply in by-elections and Senate-only elections and for Senate groups.
- Introduces a new registered entity.
- Any exchanges between a registered political party and an entity registered as the nominated entity of the party are not gifts.
- Registration is required for a nominated entity to be appointed by a party.
- A nominated entity is also an associated entity (it operates wholly, or to a significant extent, for the benefit of the party).
- A party can only have one nominated entity, and a nominated entity can only be appointed to one party.
- Registered political parties, candidates, members of the House of Representatives, senators, significant third parties, associated entities, nominated entities and third parties must have a federal account to be used for paying for electoral expenditure or for receiving donations for a federal purpose.
- An entity can have more than one federal account.
- Donations in a federal account must be for a federal purpose and therefore form part of expedited disclosure.
- For the purpose of receiving election funding, relevant entities must use a federal account.
- New parties, significant third parties, associated entities and nominated entities cannot be registered without a federal account.
- Introducing Federal administrative account: where the amounts deposited into the account are used only for a federal administrative purpose.
- Change to the definition of donation: amending the inclusions and exclusions.
- Change to the definition of candidate: amending when a person becomes, and ceases to be, a candidate.
- Change to the definition of third party: the definition changes from being linked to the disclosure threshold (now $5,000) and is instead linked to the new third party disclosure threshold (currently $20,000).
- Change to the definition of electoral expenditure: specifically excludes expenditure of an administrative nature.
- Introducing administrative expenditure: clarifying expenditure for a federal administrative purpose separate from electoral expenditure.
- A peak representative body is an entity that satisfies a number of conditions, represents the shared interests of other organisations, and may also be a significant third party, an associated entity or a third party.
- They can credit to their federal accounts a greater amount of subscriptions / affiliation fees / levies from their members (up to 4 times the annual donation cap).
- Reporting period moving from financial year to calendar year (excluding expedited reporting).
- Calendar year reporting requirements will be introduced for political parties, candidates, members of the House of Representatives, senators, significant third parties, associated entities, nominated entities and third parties, with shorter timeframes for reporting.
- Annual returns will be due 8 weeks after the end of the calendar year.
- Donors will no longer be required to complete an annual return (but will need to complete expedited disclosure notices).
- The type of entity will determine the disclosure requirements. Broadly, the content of the returns may include:
- total receipts
- total donations received for a federal purpose that have not already been reported under expedited reporting
- details of receipts that total more than the threshold
- total payments
- total electoral expenditure
- reporting on divisional and Senate electoral expenditure
- total debts
- detail of debts that total more than the threshold
- details of discretionary benefits received from the Commonwealth.
- Returns for relevant entities will include reporting on administrative assistance funding, including an audit statement.
- Election returns will be replaced by expedited disclosure and annual candidate returns.
- The act allows for the creation of regulations to establish a process for election funding to be paid in advance to parliamentary parties and candidates who, in the previous federal election, were entitled to election funding.
- Introduces a new system of administrative assistance funding for parliamentary parties and independent parliamentarians.
- The entitlement is $7,500 for each member of the House of Representatives per quarter and $3,750 for each senator per quarter (pro-rata calculations may apply) paid quarterly in advance.
- Information from donation disclosure notices on the Transparency Register
- Within 24 hours of receiving them during an election between the issue of writ and 7 days after polling day.
- At all other times, within 10 days of receiving them.
- Information from annual returns
- Within 10 weeks of the end of the calendar year.
- Disclosure threshold
- Each 1 January that follows a general election.
- Expenditure caps
- Donation cap
- Third party threshold
- Administrative assistance funding entitlement
The funding and disclosure minor amendments came into effect on 21 February 2025, the day after Royal Assent, and are related to:
- Registration of significant third parties and associated entities
- providing for the AEC to refuse a new registration if the person or entity is not required to be registered
- introducing deregistration reviews by the AEC.
- Transparency Register
- introducing a requirement for the AEC to publish the information included in disclosure returns only
- removing the requirement for the AEC to publish returns.
Further information
