What would happen if only voters - not unions or businesses - could donate to political parties? A plan to do exactly that exists, if the government wants to try it.
That’s one of the recommendations from the electoral review quoted in the article, it just didn’t make it to the headline:
The panel said there was a “low level of public trust” in the private funding of political parties. It had two key recommendations to address this:
Ban businesses and organisations like unions from donating.
Limit the amount a person can give to any one party to $30,000 in each electoral cycle.
There’s a third problem though, which is that third parties don’t have to be transparent about their funding. The Taxpayers Union registered with the electoral commission to state their intentions to campaign in the election, but because they are not campaigning for themselves they don’t have to disclose their donation sources. It’s basically the idea of a Super PAC that the US has.
Act has to publicly declare all their donors over a certain value. So instead, you make a new organisation, have them pay for all the ads and other campaigning, and because that organisation is not a political party themselves they aren’t subject to the rules. Act can simply point their potential donors at the taxpayers’ union who do the dirty work.
$30k is a lot of money. No one should donate more than the lowest working person could afford. So maybe 1% of $13k. That would make things fair. Politicians could then fight to raise minimum wage so they could get more money.
Well the rich still have the ability to vote so unless there is a maximum donation, I don’t think it would help as much as I would like.
That’s one of the recommendations from the electoral review quoted in the article, it just didn’t make it to the headline:
There’s a third problem though, which is that third parties don’t have to be transparent about their funding. The Taxpayers Union registered with the electoral commission to state their intentions to campaign in the election, but because they are not campaigning for themselves they don’t have to disclose their donation sources. It’s basically the idea of a Super PAC that the US has.
Act has to publicly declare all their donors over a certain value. So instead, you make a new organisation, have them pay for all the ads and other campaigning, and because that organisation is not a political party themselves they aren’t subject to the rules. Act can simply point their potential donors at the taxpayers’ union who do the dirty work.
$30k is a lot of money. No one should donate more than the lowest working person could afford. So maybe 1% of $13k. That would make things fair. Politicians could then fight to raise minimum wage so they could get more money.
Personally I would like to see all campaigns publically funded, no donations allowed. But I recognise there are some detail devils in there.
But a $30k cap is a good start when the bulk of donated money comes from donations much larger.