_Amid the ongoing bushfire and coronavirus crises and the political kerfuffle surrounding the Nationals and Greens youd be forgiven for missing the annualrelease of the federal political donations datathis week.

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Nine months after the 2019 federal election, voters finally get a look at who funded the political parties campaigns.

The data reveals that big money matters in Australian elections more than ever, and donations are highly concentrated among a small number of powerful individuals, businesses and unions.

These are significant vulnerabilities in Australias democracy and reinforce why substantial reforms are needed to prevent wealthy interests from exercising too much influence in Australian politics.

Largest donations in Australian political history

The big story of the 2019 election was Clive Palmer,who donated A$84 millionvia his mining company Mineralogy to his own campaign a figure that dwarfs all other donations as far back as the records go. The previous record also held by Palmer was A$15 million at the 2013 election.

While Palmer failed to win any seats last year, he ran a substantialanti-Laboradvertising campaign, andclaimed creditfor the Coalitions victory.

Read more:After Clive Palmer’s $60 million campaign, limits on political advertising are more important than ever

There are obviously many factors in an election win, but this raises a serious question: how much influence should we allow any single interest to hold over the national debate, especially during the critically important election period?

Several other large donors also emerged at this election. A A$4 million donation to the Liberal Party from the company Sugolena, owned by a private investor and philanthropist, takes the prize for the largest-ever non-Palmer donation.

Businessman Anthony Pratt donated about A$1.5 million to each of the major parties through his paper and packaging company Pratt Holdings. The hotels lobby, which has been influential in preventing pokies reforms in paststateandfederalelections, also donated about A$500,000 to the Coalition and A$800,000 to Labor.

Money buys access and sometimes influence

A 2018 Grattan Institute report,Whos in the room? Access and influence in Australian politics, showed how money can buy relationships and political connections. The political parties rely heavily on major donors, and as a result, major donors get significant access to ministers.

While explicit quid pro quo is probably rare, the risk is in more subtle influences that donors get more access to policymakers and their views are given more weight. These risks are exacerbated by alack of transparencyin dealings between policymakers and special interests.

Big money improves the chances of influence. But it also matters to election outcomes.

Looking back at the past five federal elections, an interesting correlation is evident: the party with the biggest war chest tends to form government.

Its only a sample of five, and its unclear whether higher spending drives the election result or donors simply get behind the party most likely to win.

But in 2019, Labor was widely expected to win, so its smaller war chest supports the proposition that money assists in delivering power.

What policymakers should do to protect Australias democracy

Money in politics needs to be better regulated to reduce the risk of interest groups buying influence and elections.

Real transparency is the first step. Half of private funding remains hidden from public view due to Australias high disclosure threshold and loopholes in the federal donations rules.

Only donations of more than A$14,000 need to be on the public record, and political parties dont have to aggregate multiple donations below the threshold from the same donor - meaning major donors can simply split their donations to hide their identity.

Parliament should improve the transparency of political donations by

• lowering the federal donations disclosure threshold to A$5,000, so all donations big enough to matter are on the public record;
• requiring political parties to aggregate multiple donations from the same donor, so big donors cant hide
• requiring quicker release of donations data, so voters have information on who funds elections during the campaign not nine months later.

These simple rule changes would bring Australias federal political donations regime in line with moststatesandOECD nations. The current regime leaves voters in the dark.

But the donations data shows transparency is not enough to protect Australias democracy from the influence of a handful of wealthy individuals. Ultimately, to reduce the influence of money in politics, parliament should introduce an expenditure cap during election campaigns.

Parties and candidates can currently spend as much money as they can raise, so big money means greater capacity to sell your message to voters.

Capping political expenditureby political parties and third parties would reduce the influence of wealthy individuals. And it would reduce the donations arms race between the major parties, giving senior politicians more time to do their job instead of chasing dollars.

Kate Griffiths is a Fellow, Grattan Institute,Danielle Wood is a Program Director,Grattan Institute and Tony Chen is a Researcher, Grattan Institute.