Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918

A person contravenes this subsection if:

the person is the liable person for a member of a registered political party’s expenditure group; and

at a time in a calendar year, the member incurs particular electoral expenditure; and

as at the time (and including the particular expenditure), total electoral expenditure incurred in the year by members of the expenditure group exceeds the Federal cap.

See Subdivision G for expenditure that does not count towards the cap, and for an exception for acceptable expenditure action. In addition, section 95 of the Regulatory Powers Act deals with mistake of fact.

For the purposes of this section, the excess amount of the particular expenditure is:

unless paragraph (b) of this subsection applies—the amount of the particular expenditure; or

if, immediately before the particular expenditure was incurred, total electoral expenditure incurred as mentioned in paragraph (1)(c) was less than the Federal cap—so much of the particular expenditure as results in total expenditure exceeding that cap.

To avoid doubt, electoral expenditure targeted to a Division, State or Territory is also electoral expenditure that counts towards the Federal cap.

However, expenditure covered by the by‑election or Senate‑only election caps does not count (see section 302AQB).

A person is liable to a civil penalty if the person contravenes subsection (1).

1,000 penalty units;

3 times the excess amount of the particular expenditure.