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Australia's Electoral Reform Act 2025: What Changed and What's Still Contested

Australia's federal parliament passed the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 2025, receiving royal assent on 20 February 2025. The AEC describes it as the biggest update to the Commonwealth Electoral Act in 40 years — introducing donation caps and tightening disclosure requirements that have been debated in Australia for many years.

What the Act does

The key changes introduced by the Act:

  • Lower disclosure threshold — reduced from an indexed threshold of $17,300 (previously $16,900 across 2024–25) to $5,000
  • Donation caps — introduced caps limiting how much individuals and organisations can donate to political parties and candidates
  • Electoral expenditure caps — introduced limits on how much parties and candidates can spend during election campaigns
  • Faster disclosure — shortened the time lag between donations occurring and being published on the AEC register

Delayed commencement

Despite receiving royal assent in February 2025, the commencement of key provisions was subsequently deferred to 1 January 2027, with transitional rules taking effect from 1 July 2026. This means at least one federal election cycle has passed before the donation caps and new disclosure rules come into force.

Who advocated for the reforms

The Australian Democracy Network (ADN) and its member organisations ran a multi-year campaign, #OurDemocracy (jointly with the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Human Rights Law Centre), explicitly calling for donation disclosure, donation caps, and spending limits. The ADN describes the passage of the Act as a significant step.

The Australia Institute's Democracy & Accountability Program and the Grattan Institute's democracy program had also published research supporting tighter campaign finance rules. Grattan's Orange Book 2025 supported donation transparency and caps, while being critical of the expenditure cap level as being set too high.

The charities controversy

After the Act passed, a major point of ongoing controversy emerged: the legislation applies campaign finance restrictions to charities and civil society organisations in ways that advocacy groups say treats them like political parties.

The Stronger Charities Alliance — a coalition of over 100 charities convened through the ADN's work — called for a charities exemption from the spending caps. The concern is that caps designed to limit political party spending would also constrain legitimate civil society advocacy on policy issues, even where those organisations are not running candidates or directly campaigning for parties.

The ADN, which was central to advocating for the Act's passage, subsequently raised this concern publicly — arguing that the implementation needed to be adjusted to distinguish civil society advocacy from electoral spending.

What comes next

With commencement deferred to 1 January 2027, there is a period before the new rules take effect in which the charities exemption question, and other implementation details, could potentially be addressed. Whether that happens through regulation, AEC guidance, or further legislation remains to be seen.

For context on the organisations working in this space, see the Democracy Landscape pages for the Australian Democracy Network, the Australia Institute Democracy & Accountability Program, and the Grattan Institute.