Australia to Limit Election Donations to $600,000, Mandate Real-Time Disclosures by 2028

The Australian federal government is hoping to end the “arms race” of election spending by introducing caps for parties, candidates, and donors. Donations will be disclosed in almost real-time, and the threshold at which they must be reported will be significantly reduced. The changes would not affect the 2025 federal election but instead, come into force in 2028. And that looks likely to happen, as Labor plans to introduce the new rules in Parliament on Nov. 18 and hopes to have them passed within two weeks. They have the federal opposition’s in-principle support, though there are still details to thrash out before that support becomes unconditional....