The federal government should ban foreign donations to political parties and their registered allies, such as trade unions and think tanks, according to a cross-party committee.
The landmark report by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended enforcing the ban with harsh penalties for parties caught accepting overseas cash.
"Only Australians should have the power to influence Australian politics and elections," the committee's Liberal chair Linda Reynolds said.
"At the moment our [Commonwealth] Electoral Act doesn't prohibit foreign donations for Australian campaigners, and we believe it should."
"It's got to be one rule for absolutely everybody to ensure it's a level playing field."
The ban on foreign donations to parties and 'associated entities' - those deemed by the AEC to be closely allied to parties - have the support of the Coalition, Labor and the Greens on the committee.
Passing the foreign donations ban into law will now require the Special Minister of State Scott Ryan to write a bill.
But the debate over whether to include 'third-party' advocacy groups like GetUp is threatening to derail the broader consensus.
Labor described it as an "attack on democracy", and the Greens also dissented.
But the Coalition members say they are unwilling to compromise.
"You don't start just giving exemptions for GetUp, or this group, or that group," Ms Reynolds said.
"It's got to be one rule for absolutely everybody to ensure it's a level playing field."
GetUp's records, published on the group's own website, show it has accepted hundreds of thousands in foreign donations.
Last financial year it accepted around $42,000 from German activist group Campact. It has also taken donations from the Avaaz Foundation and the New York-based Oak Foundation.
But depsite the blowback from Labor and the Greens, GetUp's National Director Paul Oosting told SBS he supports the ban applying to his organisation.
“It’s always been a tiny part of our income, and most years it accounts for absolutely nothing of our income. So it’s not a big issue from our point of view, and we absolutely welcome it applying to us,” Mr Oosting said.
The donations GetUp receives from foreign donors are much smaller than those from domestic sources. The CFMEU trade union donated over $1 million in 2010-11.
If Labor and the Greens do oppose the ban over the third party issue, the bill's survival will depend on the Senate crossbench.
At least one crossbencher who sat on the committee, independent libertarian Senator David Leyonhjelm, told SBS he would not support any ban.
"[The committee's hearings] heard no evidence that would indicate that foreign donations are a factor in Australian politics," Mr Leyonhjelm said.
"Banning foreign donations ... is a solution looking for a problem."
Foreign donations are difficult to track under the current laws as the AEC does not seek to quantify them.
Senator Leyonhjelm submitted analysis that suggested around 6 per cent of the donations in the lead-up to the 2013 election came from foreign sources.
The committee intends to conduct a further investigation into whether the ban should be extended to other political actors, such as environmental groups, that spend foreign donations on a range of activities that include political activism.
Labor and the Greens would oppose that step.
