"It's a bit of a vexed question, people will raise money through all different sorts of means." Ms Palaszczuk said she had lowered the threshold of political donations from the LNP's level of $12,500 to $1000, so any donations above that amount had to be declared and published by the Electoral Commission of Queensland. "So if you were donating to that party $10,000, $9000, $8000, no one would see because they were hidden and they were secret," she said. Queensland political parties also receive some funding from the Electoral Commission of Queensland, with more than $7 million paid out following the 2015 election. LNP leader Tim Nicholls said cash for access events had not been properly debated, and criticised Labor for accepting donations from unions such as the CFMEU.

"Now I think if there is a law, there needs to be a properly-considered law and it needs to address the issues of equity and it needs to ensure that there is proper transparency and oppenness about it," he said. Asked if a future LNP government would reverse the laws to increase the disclosure threshold to $12,500, Mr Nicholls said he would not. "That's the law, it's not on our agenda," he said. Mr Nicholls was due to attend a fundraiser in Cairns on Wednesday night. Loading

Ms Bligh banned cash for access fundraising events in 2009, and said it followed a scathing review of her government by corruption buster Tony Fitzgerald. At the time, Ms Bligh said she was not afraid to make unpopular decisions and upset powerful lobbyists and people in her own party to achieve "fair and transparent" dealings between government and businesses. "Quite frankly I have never liked them. They are a thing of the past for the Queensland Labor Party," Ms Bligh said in 2009. Former LNP premier Campbell Newman allowed cash for access events under his government. This week, the Senate heard the Australian public's distrust of political donations meant federal election campaigns worth up to $60 million could soon be fully-funded by taxpayers.