High Court: NSW election laws clamping down on union spending unconstitutional - Polidicks

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-29/high-court-unions-nsw-free-speech-decision/10759430 ... The laws cut the amount unions and other third party campaigners could put towards funding state election campaigns from $1.2 million to $500,000 and imposed prison terms for breaches. ... The NSW Government had argued the laws were justified, in part to limit the influence of large sums on the electoral process. The Government said the laws would prevent voices from being drowned out by big spends from third-party campaigners. But the unanimous decision by the full bench of the court held that while the Government's propose was legitimate, the laws put an impermissible burden on constitutionally implied freedom of political communication. It comes just weeks from the NSW state election, which will be held on March 23.

Fucking hell can this government get any shitter?

From an American perspective, where trade unions are always being shit upon in law for the sake of the almighty dollar, this sounds like a good thing. What's the difference in Australian politics?

It is a good thing, I was criticising the laws themselves and misread the article slightly.

I’m a New South Welshman myself but I do have to admit that I’m not knowledgeable about this particular thing, eg the circumstances that called for this law in the first place. The NSW government’s proposal was to prevent third parties (which includes unions) from donating any more than $500,000 to a political campaign, down from the current limit of $1,200,000, as well as imposing prison terms for breaches. Keeping money out of politics is almost definitely a good thing, indeed, but I think the problem with this law was that it was introduced in response to unions bankrolling the Labor Party (currently the opposition party in NSW). Keep in mind that the law was introduced by the NSW government under the Liberal Party, so it can be perceived that the Liberals would do this for their own electoral advantage. Also, the timing is important as the next NSW election is in only 2 months.

from an american, this is what lead to citizens united.

I'm not actually sure that's what this law does because while it limits campagin spending by third parties it allows policital parties to spend even more in their campagins, which seems to me would encourcage third parties to donate to the parties instead of funding their own campagins? I'm not sure how this works and other articles I've found haven't been helpful but I doubt the Liberals would be trying to cut down their own corporate funding through this law.

Yeah I possibly read into it wrong. But could it be the case that the Labor Party are bankrolled by fewer but larger donations, whereas the Liberal Party are bankrolled by more numerous, albeit slightly smaller donations? The article doesn’t really explain the High Court’s decision.

High court strikes down NSW's $500,000 cap on third This article goes into more detail with some of the judge's thoughts torwards the end, but it looks like the government failed to show such a reduction was needed along with concerns of supressing politcial speech.