Labor leader says he will keep working to ban foreign donations but believes it can be done without impacting other groups including not-for-profits

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Labor leader Bill Shorten has toughened his language on the Turnbull government’s proposed ban on foreign donations and other electoral law changes, declaring he will not support charities and not-for-profits being silenced.



Shorten’s remarks on Sunday follow a decision by the activist group GetUp to target the ALP in a new campaign urging members to lobby federal parliamentarians against the proposed laws.

GetUp described the call to action on the donations and electoral law bill, which it launched last Monday, as the “biggest week-long campaign” in its history.

GetUp targets Labor in 'biggest ever' week-long blitz over foreign donations law Read more

The bill, introduced by the government last December, would ban foreign political donations, but it also contains curbs on not-for-profits which has mobilised opposition from GetUp, charities, the Greens and the Institute of Public Affairs, because the proposal will increase red tape, including requiring statutory declarations to check the identity of donors, and for charities to keep foreign donations separately so they are not spent on political advocacy.

The proposal is currently being scrutinised by a parliamentary committee.

With substantial grass-roots activism mobilised against the ALP, and the Greens already pledging to reject the bill, Shorten said on Sunday: “Labor has led the way on reforming political donations and removing foreign influence from the political process”.

“We’ll keep working with the government to ban foreign donations, which is already Labor policy,” he said.

“I believe we can clean up donations without silencing our charities and not-for-profits. Labor is not interested in laws which punish Australian charities”.

Prior to Shorten’s comments on Sunday, the opposition’s charities spokesman, Andrew Leigh, and the deputy chair of the electoral matters committee, Andrew Giles, had sounded the alarm over the changes, but the opposition had not decided where to land.

The risk in digging in to oppose the changes to charities and not-for-profits is sinking the proposed ban on foreign donations, which Labor has sought for a long period of time.

The Coalition has been telegraphing its interest in regulating third-party activists, including charities and not-for-profits, in the same way as political parties since almost losing the federal election in 2016, where a number of progressive activist groups campaigned against the Coalition.