Newspoll undertook an interesting little survey over the weekend looking at the public’s perception of political donations. It ran from a sample of 1201 for an MoE that maxes out around the 2.8% mark. The public was fairly evenly split in terms of the allowable responses, but what was interesting was how the demographic composition of the answers changed as you moved up the age spectrum.
The first question and results came in like this.
The older the respondent, the more likely they are to be opposed to third party political donations. The gender breakdown was fairly equal, but the different responses between age cohorts was large, particularly between the 18-34s and the 50+. Unexpected (well, to me anyway) was how a majority of those aged 35 or more opposed third party donations.
We have a political system where a plurality of people oppose it’s funding structure.
A second question was asked on what should be the major funding source – again the answers are interesting. This time we’ll split the results up into two tables:
Something I found a bit amusing with the responses was that while only 42% of the population actually favoured third party donations, 45% believed it should be the main source of funding! 
This disconnect seems to come from Coalition supporters, where only 43% favoured third party funding, but 47% believed it should be the main source.
Again, the breakdowns are where it gets interesting. Males prefer public funding over private donations while females take the opposite view. The younger the person, the more likely they are to believe that third party donations should be the primary source of funding for political parties, while the support for public funding as the primary funding source was pretty much equal across the age groups.
The over 50’s have a pretty large uncommitted level on this second question, which was also a bit unexpected.
Without some huge political donation scandal, its hard to see how political funding is ever likely to become a vote changer issue – but there is at least scope to gain a majority of public support for some kind of reform should the government feel the need to push hard on this.
One of the gripes I have about a pure publically funded system is the way it would inevitably stifle any new political party. Generally, public funding is doled out on the basis of previous electoral performance, which would be a huge barrier to new parties attempting to win seats on their first outing.
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Regarding your last point about public funding stifling the first performance of a new group, I’d like to see public funding but also multi-party debates. There is nothing as boring as watching the ALP and Liberals bang their heads together over the economy and jobs when there are plenty of other issues which they’d rather not talk about.
If the role of elections is to elect the parliament (as opposed to the government) then shouldn’t we be having debates where there are many more parties? I may not agree with what Family First, the Christian Democrats and the Liberty and Democracy Party have to say but surely part of the “informed choice” that constitutes voting means parties having access to the people.
Yes, money in politics (in its present form) is a problem but so is the exclusion of non-major parties from the national political news landscape.
I’ve not seen this canvassed elsewhere, but I may have missed it, or else I may being utterly obtuse in relation to the difficulty of such a reform, but what would be wrong with leaving the current system as it is, but making it all completely transparent. That is, anyone can donate, but any and every donation of any size needs to be on the public record.
I offer this because I’m actually not comfortable with preventing people and organisations spending their money on political donations if that’s what they’d like to do. On the other hand, we ought to be able to see where parties’ funding is coming from.
Again, is there an obvious problem I’m missing with this scheme?
They asked about funding from groups or the tax purse, but not from individuals?
I dare say some respondents would have liked to answer that parties should get most of their funding from individual donors.
If you allow individual donations but not groups then the very rich have a crushing advantage. The internet funding campaign that Obama allegedly capitalised on was dominated by vary large donations from the very rich.
And in any case, people will rarely be so motivated as they were in America for the last presidential election.
Personally I like Jason Wilson’s suggestion. Would be a bastard to administer, but (if it could be made to work) it would give great results.
John – that’s my guess where that weird disconnect with Coalition voters comes from.
The survey only allowed 2 options: Private funding or ‘Public Funding through Tax’. The inclusion of the word ‘tax’ in the question would have biased some responses, just like if ‘Private Funding’ was changed to ‘Private Funding via Corporate Payments’ would have introduced bias.
A third option was not canvassed. No public or corporate funding, and only very limited individual donations. This would put all parties on an equal footing. Parties would have to rely on armies of footsoldiers and supporters to hand out leaflets and campaign in shopping centres. The amount of true public support of the party would then determine its campaign resources.
Kersebleptes, I’m not saying individual donations are the answer. I’m saying if they are not part of the question then the question is pointless.
eg:
Q: What’s your favourite colour, pink or yellow?
I’d like to answer red. Doesn’t mean red is the best colour, but I should be able to give that answer.
@Comet: that option may not have been canvassed because it *would* lead to equal political party footing – each party would be at the bottom of a ravine. Do you really think the measure of a political party’s ability to form a successful government should be contingent on how many suburban shopping centers it hands out leaflets at?