Campaign financing is set for an overhaul in the ACT following a report that calls for political donations to be capped at $7000.
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A report by the Justice and Community Safety Standing Committee makes 21 recommendations into electoral and political party funding in the ACT, including a $7000 annual cap on political donations and a $60,000 limit on a candidate's electoral expenditure during an election year.
It also proposes an increase in public funding for candidates and, for the first time, taxpayer funding of policy and administrative functions of registered political parties.
Committee chair and Liberal MLA Vicki Dunne said the proposed reforms would improve the public's perception of democracy.
''These measures are needed in the ACT to support and protect the state of our electoral process, without them there is a risk from perceptions it could be compromised by large donations.''
She said donors who breached the cap would receive substantial fines.
The committee's recommendations are designed to be implemented before next year's territory election.
The report also recommends that an offence be created to prevent donors from circumventing the cap and asking other people to donate on their behalf.
Committee member and Labor backbencher John Hargreaves slammed the report, describing it as an attack on his party.
He criticised the report's omission of revenue generated from rental properties owned by the Liberal Party.
''This is nothing much more than a dressed-up attack on the revenue-raising opportunities of one particular party,'' he told the Legislative Assembly.
''Interestingly, we are capping expenditure but we are not capping revenue or income ... this does not in fact talk about income generated from rental properties by the Liberal Party.''
Attorney-General Simon Corbell said the Government did not oppose caps on political donations, but thought the ones proposed in the report were ''too severe''.
He said a more sensible approach would involve capping a candidate's expenditure.
Mr Corbell said the report's recommendations for public funding of the administrative and policy functions of registered political parties would have ''a significant impost on taxpayers''.
The Government has three months to respond to the review before a draft Bill is likely to be drawn up.