Australian federal Members of Parliament (MPs) and Senators are entitled to over $3 million in pay, resources and benefits over a three-year election cycle. These resources can be used to boost re-election chances, creating barriers to entry for challengers that help explain why about 9 in 10 incumbents get re-elected. This paper argues that these barriers will be exacerbated by the Federal Government’s changes to political finance law that advantage incumbents and major parties at the expense of fair and free competition in elections. It finds that these threaten to make Australian elections less competitive than ever. 

The paper poses that there is still time to reform the Australian Government’s changes to election laws, in the light of incumbency advantages and other gaps in the legislation. 

Key findings

• Each election cycle, parliamentarians can receive at least $400,000 for office expenses, including for communications and constituent outreach, $351,000 for travel and transport, and at least $2.4 million for staff salaries and allowances, including their own annual wages starting at $234,000.
• At the last federal election, only 16 re-contesting MPs were defeated (12% of all re-contesting MPs).
• During the current election cycle, government MPs and Senators will be eligible for collective entitlements worth at least $430 million, and opposition MPs and Senators $241 million.
• Collective entitlement eligibility for minor party and independent MPs and Senators will amount to $111 million.