A parliamentary committee is again recommending tougher rules for political donations as efforts in recent years to rein in spending have largely failed.

The Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters says all donations over $1,000 should be publicly disclosed and it would like to see a ban on foreign donations.

The Coalition remains vehemently opposed and the Greens say the committee should have gone further and called for a cap on election spending.

Glossy brochures and high-rotation television ads have become par for the course in Australian election campaigns, but questions about how the campaigns are funded have also increased.

The Federal Government has tried to reduce the amount of money which can be donated without disclosure from almost $12,000 to $1,000.

One bill has been rejected and another has sat before the Senate without any action.

Now the committee is urging the Government to try again.

Chairman veteran Labor MP Daryl Melham says they have made a range of recommendations to make political donations more transparent.

"If you want to influence politicians or if you want to participate in the political process and spend more than $1,000, then you should be prepared to be identified," Mr Melham said.

"We've also said for the first time that single donations of $100,000 have to be disclosed to the Electoral Commission within 14 days of receipt. Now that's a first.

"We've also said that we're going to treat related political parties as the same parties for the purposes of disclosure, so that you can't split your donations and try and hide behind giving it to different entities.

"We've also said that money raised from fund-raising events should be counted as donations."

The committee has also recommended a ban on foreign donations and anonymous donations over $50 and reporting every six months instead of yearly.

Dissenting report

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 4 minutes 33 seconds 4 m 33 s Committee recommends tighter restrictions on political donations ( Naomi Woodley ) Download 2.1 MB

But the committee stopped short of recommending a cap on total election expenditure or private donations.

That has disappointed Greens senator and committee member Lee Rhiannon, who while agreeing with many of the recommendations, has also filed a dissenting report.

"What the Greens advocated - and it should have been in this report - was a ban on political donations from all corporations and other organisations, a strict cap on the amount of money that individuals can donate," Senator Rhiannon said.

"And also limits on how much political parties can spend come election time.

"The public are over having their letterbox stuffed full of coloured glossies, the television dominated by advertisements.

"It doesn't enhance the democratic process and it's through electoral funding reform that we can clean that up."

Mr Melham says the committee's recommendations are achievable.

"Hopefully these recommendations can be implemented, then they can be built on," he said.

Disclosure threshold

Labor says the recommendations will apply equally to all political parties. ( YouTube )

But shadow minister of state and committee member Bronwyn Bishop has questioned the role of advocacy groups and unions in their support of the Greens and the ALP

"The $1,000 threshold is designed to penalise the non-Labor side of politics because once people make a donation to the non-Labor side of politics they receive intimidation, particularly from the unions, and very often from the Labor Party themself," Ms Bishop said.

She says the Coalition will maintain its opposition to lowering the disclosure threshold and it used its dissenting report to make its own suggestions.

"We want to see a dedicated fraud unit within the [Electoral Commission] because we heard evidence about how the AEC did not use any of its existing powers to investigate the Craig Thomson affair," she said.

Mr Melham rubbished the Coalition's suggestion.

"I've never seen a dopier dissenting report in all my time in Parliament. It doesn't stand scrutiny or withstand scrutiny," he said.

"These recommendations will apply equally to all political parties, to all players, to all independents, to business, the trade union movement, the lot.

"There's no preferential treatment. There's no better treatment for the business community or more favourable treatment for the unions."

He says the Government will work with the Greens and the independents to get the bill which is currently before the Senate passed next year.