Greens let off for late donation return

I blogged serveral weeks ago that it appeared the Greens had broken the Electoral Finance Act by not disclosing donations in time.

The Electoral Commission has let them off by accepting their explanation that a temporary administrator was unaware of the requirements for continuous disclosure if aggregated donations from an individual exceed $20,000, and that this was a “reasonable excuse”.

I’m not convinced that having your acting party administrator unaware of the law is a reasonable excuse. Especially from a party that spent months and months campaigning on the need for better donation disclosure laws.

Issues I would have asked if I was the Electoral Commission are whether the Party had provided a written guide to the acting administrator as to his or her duties. It is a standard practice to have a list of duties which include legal obligations. Just saying “Whoops forgot to mention that” isn’t good practice.

The continuous disclosure requirement is well publicised on the Electoral Commission website, and in material provided by the Commission.