30 June 2016 disclosure lodgement statistics

For the year ending 30 June 2016 the NSW Electoral Commission expected to receive more than 2,200 declarations of political donations and electoral expenditure from the following individuals and organisations:

• political parties

• members of Parliament

• elected members of local councils

• local government election candidates and groups

• major political donors.

The following information is a summary of the disclosure requirements and statistics for the 2016 reporting period. The statistics are current as at 11 January 2017. For more information about particular disclosures go to our disclosure search facility.

Extension of due date for lodging declarations

Declarations were required to be lodged with the NSW Electoral Commission by 22 September 2016 except for major political donors who were required to lodge their declarations by 20 October 2016. A person can be given an extension of time to lodge the declaration if the NSW Electoral Commission is satisfied there is good cause do so and the person requests the extension before the due date.

The due date for lodging a declaration was extended in 61 cases  as shown in Table 1 below:

Table 1: Extension of due date for lodging declarations

On-time lodgement rates

Approximately 2,227 declarations were required to be lodged for the reporting period (refer Table 2 below). 71% of disclosures were lodged by the due date taking into account extended due dates.

Elected members include members of Parliament and local government councillors. Candidates and groups include those for local government elections. There were no State election candidates, groups and third-party campaigners who had a disclosure obligation for the 2015/16 financial year.

Table 2: Disclosure obligations and declarations made by category

Declarations not accompanied by an auditor's certificate

Declarations (except by major political donors) are required to be certified by a registered company auditor before they are lodged with the NSW Electoral Commission. The NSW Electoral Commission may waive this requirement under certain circumstances, for example, where the person or organisation is not entitled to public funding for a State election campaign or where no donations and expenditure are to be disclosed. The NSW Electoral Commission waived this requirement in 1,544 cases.

Table 3 below shows the number of declarations that have been identified as lodged without an auditor's certificate and where the NSW Electoral Commission has not waived the requirement. The table also shows the number of people whose audit requirement has been waived:

Table 3: No audit certificate provided/Audit waivers

Political party declarations

Political parties are required to lodge with their declarations copies of the audited annual financial statements of the party and associated financial records. These records assist the NSW Electoral Commission in undertaking compliance audits of the parties.

Table 4 below shows the number of financial documents that were lodged and not lodged with political party declarations.

Table 4: Lodgement of financial records of parties

The NSW Electoral Commission has been in contact with those parties that have not lodged the required financial and accounting documents. A number of those parties have subsequently provided the documents or confirmed the party did not have such documents for the disclosure period because they had no or minimal financial activity during the year.

'Nil' declarations

A declaration is colloquially known as a 'nil' declaration where it contains no political donations or electoral expenditure.

Table 5 below shows for each category the number of 'nil' declarations.

Table 5: Nil declarations

Electoral Expenditure incurred

Table 6 below shows the disclosed amount of electoral expenditure incurred (amounts are displayed as millions):

Table 6: Electoral expenditure incurred

Political donations made

Table 7 below shows the disclosed amount of political donations made:

Table 7: Political donations made

Political donations received

Table 8 below shows the disclosed amount of political donations received. As you can see, the value of donations received by political parties and others far exceeds the value of donations made by political donors as shown in Table 7 above. This is due to a number of factors including:

1. Donors have a lower compliance rate at disclosing the reportable political donations they make, and  Donors are not required to disclose political donations valued at less than $1,000.

2. Donors are not required to disclose political donations valued at less than $1,000.

Table 8: Political donations received