Political donations in Queensland must now be declared within 7 days to improve transparency
Updated
Political donations will now be revealed within seven days in Queensland to improve transparency.
The State Government said the almost real-time disclosure would be available online and would allow voters to see who had given how much to whom, instead of waiting for returns to be published.
The reform which was flagged last year went live this morning and would apply to state and local council donations.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said voters would be better informed in election years.
"Instead of waiting more than six months to see who is donating to a political party, from March 1, voters will have access to this information within seven business days," Ms Palaszczuk said.
The electronic real-time information will not require legislation, but the new seven-day timeline for disclosing donations will be enforced from March 1.
It will be run by the Electoral Commission Queensland (ECQ) and housed on its website.
Ms Palaszczuk said the reform should be national.
"There is absolutely no reason why this reform should not be rolled out to every other state and territory and should not be adopted by the Federal Government," she said.
"Maybe they haven't had the guts to do it, pure and simple."
Independent MP and Speaker Peter Wellington welcomed what he called a historic reform.
"Little did I think when the Premier and I first discussed this some time ago how much work was involved in bringing in real-time disclosures," Mr Wellington said.
"Never again will donors be able to just quietly make donations and know that their identity won't be revealed until after an election."
Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath said the ECQ software would identity malicious or fraudulent disclosures.
"The public can see whether they are reconciled or unreconciled claims, and the ECQ can take action to investigate any claims that may be false," she said.
All political donations over $1,000 must be declared in Queensland, after Labor in 2015 reversed the previous LNP government's move to lift the disclosure threshold to $12,800.
Topics: political-parties, elections, government-and-politics, liberal-national-party-queensland, one-nation, minor-parties, state-parliament, parliament, alp, activism-and-lobbying, brisbane-4000, qld
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