The Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice (ACDJ) today applauded the announcement by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to reform political donation laws.

"If Kevin Rudd goes ahead with the imposition of caps on how much an individual or company can donate to a political party, it will be some of the most significant reforms of political donations Australia has seen," said ACDJ director Hammy Goonan today. "Rudd said on the 7:30 Report last night that we should have the debate about caps on political donations so let us be the first to weigh in and say that the Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice sees this as a critical reform."

The Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice has previously stated that it is firmly in favour of caps on on donations to political parties and urges the Prime Minister to take the additional step of limiting electoral spending as well. ACDJ has also welcomed the other reforms discussed by the Prime Minister.

"The rise of the disclosure threshold to over $10,000 under the Howard government rendered what was left of the disclosures meaningless," said Mr Goonan. "While the reforms still have a long way to go, those that he mentioned last night, including banning foreign donations and lowering the disclosure level to donations over $1000, would be a significant improvement to the current laws."

2006/07 political donation figures released by the Australian Electoral Commission in February showed the number of declared donations was down by about 1000 donations from the previous financial year, a reduction of 85% in declared donations.

"In a situation where so few donations are being declared our democracy is seriously lacking the transparency needed for an informed public to be able to participate. Unless this situation is rectified immediately we will continue to have a situation were influence is being bought by anonymous persons and corporations with no accountability whatsoever. It will be a 'Lobbyocracy'," Mr Goonan said.