Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) 2024

✦ Plain-English Summary

# Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill 2024

## What it does
This bill overhauls how political donations and election spending are tracked and limited in Australia. It introduces new caps on how much individuals and organisations can donate to parties and candidates, requires faster public disclosure of who's funding elections, and creates stricter rules for how much parties can spend campaigning.

## Why it matters
The changes aim to reduce the influence of big money in politics and give voters clearer information about who's funding political campaigns. Right now, donation disclosures can take months to appear publicly—these reforms speed that up and set clearer limits on financial influence.

## Key details
- **Donation caps**: The bill sets maximum amounts people and organisations can give to political parties and candidates (specific figures are detailed in Schedule 3, which takes effect from 1 July 2026)
- **Speed of disclosure**: Donations will be reported publicly much faster than the current system (Schedule 2 covers expedited disclosure requirements)
- **Spending limits**: Political parties face new caps on campaign expenditure (Schedule 4)
- **Phased rollout**: Most major changes kick in from 1 July 2026, giving parties time to adjust

Official Description

Amends the: Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984 to: update key definitional terms including the meaning of ‘gift’, ‘disclosure threshold’ and ‘candidate’ and introduce the category of ‘nominated entity’; require expedited disclosure of gifts; consolidate financial reporting obligations; and make machinery amendments in relation to electoral and referendum operations; Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 to: establish an annual gift cap, an overall gift cap and a State and Territory gift cap; establish annual caps on electoral expenditure; expand on existing obligations in relation to Commonwealth campaign accounts; introduce a new system of administrative funding and increase election funding; streamline reporting obligations for Senate groups; and make technical amendments in relation to compliance and enforcement powers.

Committee Referrals

Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights; Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills

Full bill PDF →APH page →

Audit History

Introduced

18 Nov 2024

Last updated on APH

10 Apr 2026

Outcome date

20 Feb 2025

Last checked by Crossbench

today

Full text indexed

today

🗳️

No formal division recorded

This bill passed by voice vote — parliament agreed without calling a formal count. A division is only recorded when a member explicitly requests one.

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