Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918

A person contravenes this subsection if:

at a time in a calendar year, the person:

is an Independent Senate candidate or Senator for a State or Territory; and

incurs particular electoral expenditure; and

as at the time (and including the particular expenditure), total electoral expenditure incurred in the year by the person, while the person is an Independent Senate candidate or Senator for the State or Territory, exceeds the Independent Senate cap for the State or Territory.

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)(b) was less than the Independent Senate cap for the State or Territory—so much of the particular expenditure as results in total expenditure exceeding that cap.

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.