Parties may have a “nominated entity” which can pay unlimited amount into the party’s campaign account. The Liberal Party’s nominated entity the “Cormack Foundation” pays millions in share dividends to the LP’s campaign account. The new bill would not change this.

Independents are not allowed to have a nominated entity.

The bottom line is that established political parties end up with more sources of money flowing into their campaign accounts than independents or anyone trying to get into Parliament for the first time.

The ability of a party to fund advertising within a specific electorate, so long as it doesn’t specifically name that electorate’s candidate or the electorate itself, above and beyond the single-electorate spending caps, is another way the proposal favours big parties over individual candidates. They can redirect spending from safe seats to marginal ones, as long as that spending is on national issues and features party leadership rather than the local candidate, where an independent will always be running on themselves and therefore has only the limit per-seat.

But caps on expenditure are important, if done fairly, even against the cries of independents who might have gotten elected on the back of large spending. That’s why it’s important to get this right, and spend time seeking input from all the stakeholders including minor parties, independents, and legal scholars like Twomey herself. Rushing it through like the two major parties are trying to do is so fundamentally awful.