Exclusive: Labor is eyeing a sweeping series of election funding reforms that could see taxpayers shoulder the majority of campaign costs but remove the influence of big donors from Australian politics.

The appointment just months from a federal election the government is widely expected to lose has irritated the Labor opposition, which says it will review the decision, as well as the posting of former attorney-general George Brandis as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and former Western Australian premier Richard Court as ambassador to Japan.