Political funding and donation disclosures
During the reporting period, we continued to improve transparency in the political donation system and facilitate state political funding.
We published information on 372 political donations totalling $1,246,182 through our public VEC Disclosures platform. Two registered political parties received donations above the general cap and had to forfeit these to the state.
Compliance with the 21-day donation disclosure timeline declined, with 70% submitted late, compared to 61% in 2022-23. Of the late submissions, 65% were from donors and 60% were from donation recipients. During 2024-25, we will boost awareness and improve compliance through education, engagement, and enforcement.
We facilitated $12,991,016 in payments to political parties, elected members, and candidates for:
- public funding
- advance public funding
- administrative expenditure funding
- policy development funding
Key payments were for the:
- 2022 state general election
- Narracan District supplementary election
- Warrandyte District by-election
- Mulgrave District by-election
- 2026 state general election.
We distributed $5.9 million in advance public funding for the 2026 state general election and over $6.3 million for administrative expenses.
We recovered $292,321 in over-payments from the previous year and wrote off $811,900 in bad debts. The Electoral Act prevents us from reclaiming funds from deregistered parties or independent members who leave Parliament and, without legislative changes, we expect bad debts to continue to accrue.
Overall, we published 133 annual returns for the 2022-23 financial year, the highest since reporting began in the 2018-19 financial year. This is a 66% increase on the previous year, driven mainly by the 2022 state election and more political participants, especially independent candidates.
In response to errors made in these annual returns submissions, we updated our forms and guidance and issued a determination to mandate the use of our audit certificate template for the 2023-24 financial year annual returns.
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