Essential Report

Political donations

Dec 19, 2017

Q. Would you support or oppose introducing the following requirement concerning political donation?

	Total support	Total oppose	Strongly support	Support	Oppose	Strongly oppose	Don’t know	Total support (Jun 2017)	Total oppose (Jun 2017)
Political donations to be reported immediately by political parties, compared to annual reports at the moment	84%	6%	46%	38%	5%	1%	11%	78%	5%
All politicians to publicly disclose meetings with representatives of companies, donors or unions	82%	5%	44%	38%	4%	1%	12%	79%	6%
A ban on foreign donations	67%	16%	42%	25%	12%	4%	16%	64%	15%
A cap on donations of $5000	59%	20%	27%	32%	16%	4%	22%	61%	15%
A ban on political donations by companies and unions	58%	22%	27%	31%	18%	4%	21%	60%	16%
All donations banned and all political party spending to be taxpayer funded	30%	50%	13%	17%	23%	27%	21%	30%	46%

Support by party preference	Total support	Vote Labor	Vote Lib/Nat	Vote Greens	Vote other
Political donations to be reported immediately by political parties, compared to annual reports at the moment	84%	87%	86%	89%	89%
All politicians to publicly disclose meetings with representatives of companies, donors or unions	82%	83%	89%	83%	86%
A ban on foreign donations	67%	66%	74%	68%	75%
A cap on donations of $5000	59%	63%	60%	58%	65%
A ban on political donations by companies and unions	58%	53%	63%	64%	65%
All donations banned and all political party spending to be taxpayer funded	30%	36%	29%	30%	25%

There was majority support for all listed reforms except taxpayer funding for political parties (30% support/50% oppose).

There was particularly strong support for immediate reporting of donations (84%, up 6% from June) and public disclosure of meetings (82%, up 3%).

There were few major differences by party preference.

Essential Report