It’s time we worked together to beat the major parties.
There was a brief committee stage (where you get to question the relevant minister on his proposed bill) last week in regard to the electoral funding laws.
I put it to the relevant minister why people who want to run in an election can’t get their registration fee of $2,000 back unless they get 4% of the vote.
The registration fee has recently increased from $1,000 to $2,000 per candidate.
This has made it very difficult for many people to be able to participate in democracy.
It’s also unfair because many first time candidates won’t have the brand recognition to get 4% of the vote to get their costs refunded, and they don’t have access to the support of the major parties.
This of course is by design from the major parties who have deliberately bent the rules to stop minor parties and independents from running.
For a party the cost of registering candidates in every lower house seat in Australia has increased from $150,000 to $300,000 which has to be paid to the AEC. The AEC are clearly in bed with the majors.
That’s why I have approached other parties to run joint Senate tickets in every state. Instead of splitting the vote in every state, we should just split the states up and run on the same ticket so we don’t split votes, leak preferences and can get funding so we can take out the majors.
Senate on 12/02/2025
BILLS
Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill 2024 – In Committee
Senator RENNICK (Queensland) (21:44): Senator Farrell, you just said that all ordinary Australians should be able to stand, but here is the thing—you’ve got to find $2,000 just to register. I’ve had many candidates come to me who want to run, but you know what? They don’t have $2,000. If they were able to get that money refunded then they might be able to run. I would actually be able to finance them myself. But the problem is that we don’t know if they’re going to get four per cent of the vote. So, when you say that all Australians can run, that is not entirely true, because they have to get four per cent of the vote to get any electoral funding.
This is ultimately my question to you—by capping all the other money that external people from outside the major political parties can donate, you can then monopolise the electoral funding by increasing the dollar per vote. That’s what you’ll do in the next cycle—cut off all external sources now and then, knowing that you get the bulk of the votes and you will cut the threshold off at four per cent, lift the dollar count per vote, from $3 50, up to $7 or $8. That’s how you’re going to make up for the fact that other parties can’t actually raise external dollars. That is my question to you. If you genuinely want ordinary Australians to be able to run, why don’t you reduce the threshold in order to receive electoral funding from four per cent to one per cent so that people can at least get their registration fee and some costs of the election paid? It’s all very well talking about the big end of town and capping them, but you’ve choked the little end of town and the minor parties, like People First, from actually getting off the ground.
