The Greens have urged the major parties to begin disclosing their donations in real time, saying the current system has allowed vested interests to warp Australia’s democracy.

This morning, Australian voters will learn who was bankrolling the nation’s political parties more than 18 months ago. The unresponsive, sluggish federal disclosure system requires only annual reporting, and lags well behind similar disclosure regimes in some states and territories.

Queensland requires donations to be declared in real time, Victoria within 21 days, and New South Wales also within 21 days in election periods. Those states require donations to be disclosed if they are above $1,000. The federal system only requires transparency for donations above $13,800.

The federal system dumps a year’s worth of donations data at once, this year on Friday at 9am.

The Greens’ democracy spokeswoman, Larissa Waters, said the weakness of the current system perpetuated secrecy and allowed vested interests to have undue influence on politicians.

“The real-time disclosure of donations to political parties would reveal to the public who is attempting to seek influence – and would enable closer tracking of whether any favours were granted as a result,” she said. “Real-time disclosure of donations would discourage donations that seek to buy policy outcomes that favour corporate interests over the community’s.

“We want to get the influence of big money out of politics entirely but the next best thing is people knowing in real time which donor is seeking to buy outcomes from which political party.”

The public overwhelmingly supports real-time donations disclosures. A Guardian Essential poll last year found 78% of respondents would support reporting political donations immediately rather than the current annual disclosures.

The support is shared across voters for all three major parties.

The Greens will release its policy blueprint for donation, lobbying and whistleblower reform on Friday. It includes banning donations from tobacco, alcohol, gambling, mining, defence, banking and pharmaceutical industries, and capping all other donations at $3,000 per parliamentary term. It would also lower the disclosure threshold to $1,000 and introduce real-time monitoring.

It would seek to reform political lobbying by enforcing a five-year cooling off period for politicians moving into for-profit work that poses a conflict of interest. That cooling off period would also be extended to staffers.

Lobbyists who work directly for corporations and industry groups would be subject to the same transparency standards as third-party lobbyists, and the lobbying code of conduct would be properly enforced by an independent commissioner. MPs and senators would need to disclose meetings with lobbyists through a diary published monthly.

The Greens’ proposals are highly unlikely to gain the support of either major party, who have traditionally been resistant to integrity reforms at a federal level. State branches have been more receptive to change.

The Victorian Labor party proposed a dramatic revamping of its donations system in the lead-up to last year’s state election.

NSW’s donations regime was given added stringency last year, with new requirements to disclose donations of $1,000 or more within 21 days during election campaigns. Outside of election campaigns, donations are disclosed within six months.

The federal system’s high thresholds for disclosure mean Australians are left in the dark over much of the money propping up federal parties.

The Grattan Institute last year estimated hidden sources gave major political parties more than $62m, about 30-40% of total donations. Grattan Institute researcher Danielle Wood said at the time that Australia’s $13,800 disclosure threshold was too high.

“The fact that it’s high, combined with the fact you don’t have to aggregate it, really undermines the regime,” she told Guardian Australia in September. “The purpose of the regime should be that we can see anyone who is giving sizeable amounts of funds to a party. You don’t want to pick up the small mum and dad donors, it’s too much administratively, and people have a right to privacy.”