The Party Funding Bill was given unanimous backing in the final vote in Parliament yesterday, but Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said the PN still had reservations about it.

In a brief statement before the vote was taken, Dr Busuttil said among the several points raised by the Opposition, and accepted by the government, were provisions that political parties should be subject to international standards of accounting and auditing and that donations from individuals must be capped at €25,000 rather than €40,000 as originally proposed by the government.

Dr Busuttil regretted that the government had rejected other proposals, such as a €2 million cap on spending by the political parties in electoral campaigns.

The Opposition was also against the Electoral Commission being the regulator in party funding matters and would have liked the new law to address the anomaly whereby Labour had a substantial financial advantage by making use of many properties owned or requisitioned by the government.

“The government, however, rejected the calls for a level playing field,” he said, adding that the PN was considering legal action to address these anomalies.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that in 30 months the government had done what the former government had not done in 25 years. It was a development on a Bill originally proposed in the past legislature by Franco Debono. The disagreements were few.

The disagreement on the electoral campaign spending cap was logical. The law made it incumbent on the parties to record from who they received donations, where and how, but then it was up to the parties to spend their money as they wished.

Dr Busuttil’s argument would have made sense if political parties were funded by taxpayers. In time, if that happened, one could revisit the capping proposal.

Dr Muscat said the government felt the Electoral Commission should be the regulator. It was trusted in the elections – the most delicate moment in democratic life. “So, why not on party funding?”

As for the advantage enjoyed by the PL through use of properties, Dr Muscat said it did not seem to have an advantage in that it was in opposition for 25 years. The PN government had never rejected ground rents paid by the PL for those properties.

Furthermore, the PN was also using properties owned by the government. The Attorney General had said these properties could not be seen within the parameters of party funding.