Party Rules?

Dilemmas of political party regulation in Australia

Anika Gauja, Marian Sawer, Marian Sawer, AO

• Publisher: ANU Press
• Year: 2016
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781760460778
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Globale Politik

Trust in political parties has never been lower, but we have more and more of them, to the point where voters need magnifying sheets to read ballot papers. What is the relationship between party regulation and the nature of our democracy? How is it that parties have been able to gather so many public resources yet with so little scrutiny of their affairs? This is the first book on party regulation in Australia. It covers a wide range of issues, from party donations to candidate selection, from expectations of parties in a representative democracy to the reluctance to regulate and the role of the courts where legislators fear to tread.

Table of contents

• Figures
• Tables
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Contributors
• Party rules: Promises and pitfalls
• Resisting legal recognition and regulation: Australian parties as rational actors?
• Party registration and political participation: Regulating small and ‘micro’ parties
• Who gets what, when and how: The politics of resource allocation to parliamentary parties
• Putting the cartel before the house? Public funding of parties in Queensland
• More regulated, more level? Assessing the impact of spending and donation caps on Australian state elections
• Dilemmas of party regulation: Hands-on courts versus hands‑off legislators?
• Party rules: The regulatory ‘gap’
• Appendix: Federally registered political parties, 1984–2016
• Figure 3.1 Number of registered parties at federal elections, 1984–2013
• Figure 5.1 Growth in public funding rate (Commonwealth elections)
• Figure 5.2 Queensland Greens’ income from public funding
• Figure 6.1 Queensland campaign spending, 2006–12
• Figure 6.2 Queensland major party donations relative to spending, 2006–12
• Figure 6.3 Queensland minor party donations relative to spending, 2006–12
• Figure 6.4 NSW campaign spending, 2003–11
• Figure 6.5 NSW major party donations relative to spending, 2003–11
• Figure 6.6 NSW minor party donations relative to spending, 2003–11
• Table 1.1 Date of first acknowledgement of political parties in national constitutions: Europe
• Table 1.2 Date of initial introduction of party regulation by jurisdiction
• Table 1.3. Additional resources allocated for minor parties* and Independents in the federal parliament
• Table 2.1 Levels of legal intervention in political parties
• Table 3.1 Party groups contesting Senate elections, 1998, 2013 and 2016*
• Table 3.2 Parties refused registration in 2013: 500-member test
• Table 3.3 Party membership requirements for registration
• Table 3.4 Candidates contesting Senate elections, 1983–2013
• Table A3.1 Parties registered between the 2010 and 2013 federal elections
• Table A3.2 Parties that applied prior to the 2013 election and registered after the 2013 election
• Table A3.3 Newly registered parties, 2014–16
• Table 6.1 Australian party finances, 2007, 2010 and 2013
• Table 6.2 Australian State party finances, State elections, 2011–13
• Table 6.3 NSW and Queensland caps introduced in 2010 and 2011
• Table 6.4 Queensland party funds: Dollars per voter
• Table 6.5 Ratios of major and minor party finances: Queensland*
• Table 6.6 NSW party funds: Dollars per voter
• Table 6.7 Ratios of major and minor party finances: NSW*