This guide summarises the complex funding and disclosure laws federally, and in each Australian state and territory. This document does not attempt to capture every nuance of each system and is not a substitute for legal advice. The analysis separates out donations and electoral expenditure, and public funding.

This report explores how the powerful fossil fuel, gambling and tobacco industries are attempting to take advantage of Australia’s weak integrity laws, thereby distorting the nation's democratic processes, to put profits ahead of society's wellbeing.

The regulation of political finance is an essential component of a modern democracy. This report provides a comprehensive overview of the current regulation of political finance laws across the federation.

Compared to other Australian states, Tasmania has weaker political donation laws, less government transparency and limited public accountability. This report recommends that the Tasmanian government undertake significant, rather than piecemeal, reform in 2021, to ensure the people of Tasmania have confidence in their democracy and their elected officials.

This paper deals with the intersection between three sets of challenges that constitute existential threats to democracies across the world. The first is money in politics which not only poses the danger of ‘policy capture’ but also, in worse scenarios, state capture by monied interests.