Labor MP Mark Furner says new bill lowering threshold for declaring donations back to only $1,000 would include retrospective element

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Queensland’s Liberal National party will have to reveal secret donations during its time in office under Campbell Newman by the end of the year, a Labor MP has predicted.

Mark Furner, chairman of a parliamentary committee that has examined a new bill that would lower the threshold for declaring donations back to $1,000, said he expected the laws to be passed, possibly in the next fortnight.

That would include the retrospective element of the bill, which would force the LNP to declare all donations made secret when it lifted the threshold to $12,800 in 2013.

Furner said it could be argued that politicians could be influenced by donations worth less and the LNP’s disclosure would be interesting.

Other groups, including the state bar association and Council for Civil Liberties, raised concerns about the unfairness of changing the goalposts for donors who may have given to the LNP expecting anonymity.

In a submission the LNP said a donor “may well fear that the donation will bring with it the risk of retribution from the opposing political party”.

Furner told Guardian Australia he did not believe retrospective disclosure was a highly contentious matter and that “naturally the LNP wishes to retain their position on the $12,800”.

“I believe it will [pass] and I think on that basis … evidence was provided in submissions and during the hearings there would be no sanctions against people who for example didn’t keep those records,” he said.

“We as a party don’t have issue with transparency and integrity and clearly explaining or allowing access to who’s donating to what particular party.”

The LNP argued it had raised the threshold to $12,800 in line with the crown solicitor’s advice that the state law could be invalid because it clashed with the federal limit.

Furner said this was a “red herring” that had never resulted in a challenge to different thresholds interstate.

A report by the legal affairs committee released on Monday said it could not muster majority support for the draft legislation.

Furner said this was a result of the “unusual circumstance” where the governing Labor party and the LNP opposition had three members each.

But he expected the bill to pass with the support of the speaker and independent MP, Peter Wellington, the Labor MP turned independent, Billy Gordon, and without opposition from the two Katter party MPs.

“Say the bill passes in the next two weeks of sittings, which is a possibility, you would think within six months, say towards the end of the year, [the LNP] would be in a position to table their records of who gave donations above $1,000,” Furner said.

The committee recommended that the attorney general, Yvette D’Ath, “clarifies to which party a penalty applies” if a donor fails to lodge a return and to amend the bill to reflect that.

It also called on D’Ath to advise parliament of “the consequence of a candidate failing to inform the ‘third party’ that they must provide a return” and whether that might be a defence for the donor who does not.