00:00 Roger Cook wants to make sure it's a level playing field when it comes to political donations.
00:07 In the past we've had wealthy individuals try to influence outcomes of elections by simply flooding the campaign with very high levels of expenditure, particularly in advertising.
00:19 Proposed reforms will cap donations to candidates for the lower house at $130,000 and $65,000 for the upper house. Details of any donation, $1,000 or higher and of who made it, will be published online once a week and during an election period every 24 hours.
00:41 There will be no hiding, there will be no finessing. As a result of that we have a much more accountable system.
00:47 Was it considered or discussed that donations from property developers would be banned as part of these reforms?
00:54 Yeah it was considered and we did discuss it. But what we thought is that everyone who makes a political donation should be accountable for their activities.
01:04 They just go to the website and look at who's donating and they say that developer's donating to John, we're not going to vote for John because we don't like that developer.
01:14 Some say WA should go even further than other states in banning donations from certain industries.
01:20 I think WA should be going harder and stronger and excluding not only property developers but I think some of the key industries here like the oil and gas sector which have pretty strong influence frankly over government policy.
01:31 What he wants to end up with is the taxpayers paying a mozza to completely fund an election, that's not on.
01:40 To help pay for the new transparency requirements, parties will be able to claim back more of their campaign expenses up from $2.40 per vote to $4.40.
01:51 In other states it ranges from $6 to $18 per vote.
01:56 vote.
01:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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