Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012

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PART 6

State Funding of Political Parties and Gender Balance

Amendment of section 17 of Act of 1997.

42.— Section 17 of the Act of 1997 is amended—

(a) in subparagraph (i) of subsection (2)(b) by substituting:

(i) “general increase or decrease” for “general increase”, and

(ii) “shall be increased or decreased” for “shall be increased”,

(b) in subsection (4)—

(i) by substituting the following paragraphs for paragraphs (b) and (c):

“(b) the name of each candidate elected,

(c) the name of each candidate who was not elected to whom the greatest number of votes credited at any stage of the counting of votes exceeds one quarter of the quota, and”,

and

(ii) by inserting the following new paragraph after paragraph (c):

“(d) the gender of each candidate,”,

and

(c) by inserting the following subsection after subsection (4A) (inserted by section 50(c)(iv) of the Act of 2001):

“(4B) (a) Payments calculated in accordance with this Part shall be reduced by 50 per cent, unless at least 30 per cent of the candidates whose candidatures were authenticated by the qualified party at the preceding general election were women and at least 30 per cent were men.

(b) Paragraph (a)—

(i) comes into operation on the polling day at the general election held next after section 42 of the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012 comes into operation, and

(ii) ceases to have effect on the polling day at the general election held next after the expiration of 7 years from the polling day specified in subparagraph (i).

(c) Payments calculated in accordance with this Part shall be reduced by 50 per cent, unless at least 40 per cent of the candidates whose candidatures were authenticated by the qualified party at the preceding general election were women and at least 40 per cent were men.

(d) Paragraph (c) comes into operation on the day after the day on which paragraph (a) ceases to have effect.”.