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In December 2017, the Turnbull Government introduced legislation to restrict foreign political donations. This is because only Australians and Australian entities have a legitimate role in influencing Australian elections and political processes.



A handful of charities (approximately 0.02 percent of Australian charities) are currently regulated by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) because they spend significant amounts of money on things like election advertising and campaigning at polling booths. Under current law, significant political expenditure incurred by any entity must be reported to the AEC.


Under the government’s legislation, any entity required to report their political expenditure to the AEC will need to ensure this money is raised from Australians. Political expenditure is defined in existing law, and includes expenditure on the production of material intended or likely to affect voting in an election.

The objective of this Bill is to ensure all political campaigning that targets Australian voters is paid for by Australians – be it election advertising, campaign phone calls or how-to-vote recommendations. Foreign governments, foreign billionaires and foreign companies have no legitimate role in funding these activities to influence Australian politics.





As a very significant political group GetUp should clearly be subject to the same transparency and disclosure requirements as other political groups such as political parties, and GetUp should be subject to the same ban on foreign political donations.

The Bill does provide for future regulations to determine what information a political party or political campaigner can rely on to determine that a donation is permitted. That may include a statutory declaration but is likely to include other options.

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