The Greens have announced they will oppose the bill to ban foreign donations because it contains numerous other changes they believe will reduce electoral funding to minor parties and disadvantage community groups.

While supporting a ban on foreign donations in principle, the Greens’ democracy spokeswoman, Lee Rhiannon, has warned the Turnbull government’s bill to do so will change the rules on public funding of elections and echoed concerns it is targeted at the progressive campaign organisation GetUp.

Rhiannon said the bill was “deeply flawed” and the Greens “cannot support [it] in its current form”.

The electoral funding and disclosure reform bill states that political parties that win 4% or more of the vote would get $2.70 per vote of public funding or the amount of their electoral expenditure, whichever is lesser.

Under the current federal electoral laws, parties receive public funding based on their size of the vote regardless of what it is spent on, whereas in Queensland and New South Wales funding is tied to electoral expenditure.

The special minister of state, Mathias Cormann, said the bill “limits payments to demonstrated spending on elections to stop electoral funding profiteering”.

But Rhiannon told Guardian Australia “the narrow definition of what would qualify as election expenditure will severely reduce funding for minor political parties”.

Electoral expenditure currently includes the production, broadcast and publication of ads, distribution of electoral material and opinion polling.

TV ads run during an election campaign would clearly qualify as election expenditure but hiring a campaign coordinator 10 months out from the campaign may not.

Rhiannon said the measure would reduce the ability of minor parties to use public funding to pay for their administrative costs and finance their other campaigns.



“This will put pressure on minor parties to chase large political donations, which is undesirable because of the corrupting influence that they have,” she said. “Such a change in funding will help entrench a duopoly in Australian politics.”

The explanatory memorandum also states that spending must be “incurred in the election period” although that stipulation does not appear in the bill.

Asked whether only expenses incurred during a campaign could be claimed, as suggested by the memorandum, Cormann said: “No, that is not the case.

“The bill does not change the definition of electoral expenditure. Electoral expenditure is not limited to the election period.”

Cormann said the “original intent” of election funding was to support candidates and parties in their electoral expenditure. “The bill does not change this.”

He said the bill added a regulation-making power to allow the definition of electoral expenditure to be updated to prevent “loopholes or anachronisms”.

Rhiannon said the Greens “would be prepared to support a bill that bans foreign donations to political parties” but the current bill “runs cover for ... measures that will give political advantage to the Liberal and National parties”.

She argued the bill also “severely restricts community groups’ activities while not touching big Australian corporate political donations”.

GetUp and Labor have both complained that a change to the definition of “associated entity” is designed to force GetUp to identify as an associated entity of Labor and the Greens, despite its independence from them.

Under the change, GetUp could be classed as an associated entity of Labor and the Greens because its negative campaigns against Coalition MPs could be sufficient to prove it “operates wholly, or to a significant extent, for the benefit of one or more registered political parties”.

Rhiannon said the change was “so broad it would likely cripple the actions of community groups during election campaigns”.

She said campaigning for or against political parties “should not make it an associated entity” because “the expanded definition ... would unfairly capture community organisations that are completely independent of political parties”.

“It is clear that the Liberal and National parties are determined to nobble the work of GetUp.”

Labor’s Andrew Giles, the deputy chair of the joint standing committee on electoral matters, has warned the push to redefine associated entities will make it harder to win bipartisan support for one of the government’s foreign interference bills.

Cormann has said the bill is aimed “to ensure all organisations involved in relevant political expenditure and activity are subject to the same transparency, disclosure and reporting requirements”.



He said the bill “clarified an ambiguity” about the meaning of “operating for the benefit of a political party” but this did not amount to an extension of scope.

“GetUp is plainly a political campaigning organisation engaged in political activity and incurring political expenditure,” Cormann said, adding it was “entirely appropriate” it be subject to the same disclosure requirements as other political actors.

One Nation faced scrutiny in 2017 over a leaked recording in which its party leader, Pauline Hanson, and her principal adviser and party secretary, James Ashby, discussed the idea the party could “make some money” by inflating campaign expenses. The pair later said the idea was rejected.

Rhiannon said the risk of misspending of public funding could be dealt with by a ban on using it for private purposes.