Skip to content

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 2025.1 The AEC describes it as the biggest update to the Commonwealth Electoral Act in 40 years2 — introducing donation caps and tightening disclosure requirements that have been debated in Australia for many years.

Main lesson —

  • Passing the bill is half the battle — the deferred commencement created a second contest over implementation details (the charities exemption) that could reshape the law's actual effect. The organisations that campaigned for the Act are now the ones asking for it to be adjusted

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 $5,0003
  • Donation caps — an annual gift cap of $50,000 (indexed) per donor to a party, and an overall gift cap of $1.6 million4
  • Electoral expenditure caps — a $90 million total cap on a party's electoral expenditure, and an $800,000 per-seat cap5
  • Faster disclosure — donations must be reported sooner, as quickly as within 24 hours during an election period6

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 2026.7 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 #OurDemocracy campaign — developed jointly by the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Human Rights Law Centre, and the Australian Democracy Network (ADN)8 — explicitly called for stronger donation disclosure, spending limits, and tighter donation rules.9

The Australia Institute's Democracy & Accountability Program published research calling for stronger real-time donation disclosure, while also raising concerns that the new donation and spending caps as designed would burden new entrants and smaller parties more heavily than major parties and incumbents.10 The Grattan Institute supported donation transparency and caps in its Orange Book 2025, while arguing the total expenditure cap was set too high and the per-seat cap too low.11

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 140 charities, formed in 2017 and now working closely with the ADN on electoral reform — called for a charities exemption from the spending caps.12 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. ADN Executive Director Saffron Zomer put it directly: "Charities aren’t the same as political parties. We don’t make laws, we can’t form a government, and we’re legally bound to pursue the public interest."13

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.

Sources & further reading

  1. "The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 2025 received Royal Assent on, Thursday 20 February 2025." "Changes to electoral laws", Australian Electoral Commission, 21 February 2025. ↩

  2. "The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 2025 is the biggest update to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 in 40 years." "Introduction to the Reform", Australian Electoral Commission. ↩

  3. "The disclosure threshold amount that applies from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 is more than $17,300." "1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025 - $16,900." "Disclosure threshold", Australian Electoral Commission. "All donations that total more than $5,000 must be disclosed." "Introduction to the Reform", Australian Electoral Commission. ↩

  4. "Annual gift cap $50,000 indexed annually" and "Overall gift cap 32 times the annual gift cap – $1,600,000." "Fact sheet: Gift caps", Australian Electoral Commission. ↩

  5. "The new total cap of $90 million for electoral expenditure by a political party is too high, keeping too much money in politics. And the per-seat spending cap of $800,000 is too low, advantaging incumbents over new entrants." "Election 2025: Where the money came from", Grattan Institute, 2 February 2026. ↩

  6. "Donations for a federal purpose must be reported sooner (as soon as within 24 hours during an election period)." "Introduction to the Reform", Australian Electoral Commission. ↩

  7. "The reforms were due to commence on 1 July 2026. Instead, pending the Special Minister of State making transitional rules, the reforms will commence on 1 January 2027." "AEC statement: Funding and disclosure reform – implementation timeframe", Australian Electoral Commission, updated 1 April 2026. Transitional rules "apply from 1 July 2026 until 30 June 2027" — "Transitional Rules for funding and disclosure", Australian Electoral Commission. ↩

  8. "The #OurDemocracy campaign was developed by three organisations – the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) and the Australian Democracy Network (ADN), together with the input of over 30 more." "#OurDemocracy + Stronger Charities Alliance", Australian Communities Foundation. ↩

  9. "The Human Rights Law Centre and the #OurDemocracy campaign both made submissions supporting three key reforms: To improve transparency of political donations and election spending through lowering the disclosure threshold, requiring real time disclosure, and closing loopholes that allow millions in financial contributions to go undisclosed;" (The submission's other two asks, discussed further down the same page, were to cap election spending and to ban large political donations altogether.) "Election data a reminder that Albanese government must regulate money in politics", Human Rights Law Centre, 31 January 2023. ↩

  10. "The Australia Institute is calling for transparency and real-time disclosure of political donations ahead of the Australian Electoral Commission’s annual release of political contributions data for 2023-24." and, from Bill Browne, Director of the Democracy & Accountability Program: "The Government has bundled uncontroversial improvements to political disclosure laws with untested and unfair spending and donation caps, the burden of which will fall more heavily on new entrants and smaller parties than major parties and incumbents." "Legislation requiring real-time disclosure of political donations could pass this week", The Australia Institute, 3 February 2025. ↩

  11. "The new total cap of $90 million for electoral expenditure by a political party is too high, keeping too much money in politics. And the per-seat spending cap of $800,000 is too low, advantaging incumbents over new entrants." "Election 2025: Where the money came from", Grattan Institute, 2 February 2026 — reflecting the same position published in Grattan's Orange Book 2025 (March 2025). ↩

  12. "All signatories to the letter are members of the Stronger Charities Alliance, an alliance of over 140 charities working across a range of issues including education, social welfare, human rights, international development, animal welfare, the environment, health, climate change, disability rights and philanthropy." "MEDIA RELEASE: Charities call for critical amendments to the Electoral Reform Bill", Stronger Charities Alliance, 11 February 2025. "The Stronger Charities Alliance was formed in 2017 in response to a number of bills which would have silenced charities on issues of national importance." "#OurDemocracy + Stronger Charities Alliance", Australian Communities Foundation. ↩

  13. "Charities aren’t the same as political parties. We don’t make laws, we can’t form a government, and we’re legally bound to pursue the public interest." Saffron Zomer, ADN Executive Director, quoted in "MEDIA RELEASE: Charities call for critical amendments to the Electoral Reform Bill", Stronger Charities Alliance, 11 February 2025. ↩