It said that the roles and responsibilities of senior party office holders should be made public and updated on a regular basis, after the ICAC was highly critical of a several senior members of the Liberal Party for denying that it was their responsibility to know if their party was accepting illegal donations.

In a report to Parliament ahead of the release of a report by a panel of experts into electoral funding reforms, the ICAC recommended that parties be required to report political donations in “real time” — as soon as possible. At the moment, they only have to disclose donations every six months, often months after an election.

ICAC has spent much of the last year investigating illegal donations accepted by Liberal candidates, causing 10 government MPs to either resign or move to the cross benches.

Remarkably, the ICAC recommended a lessening of some accountability requirements, saying that donors should not have to report what they had given parties, arguing this put an administrative burden on the NSW Electoral Commission.

It also suggested that political parties should not have to justify the public money they received for administrative purposes, as long as they meet acceptable standards. It suggested that instead of making the funding a reimbursement it be turned into a grant. NSW is the only state where political parties get money not just for elections but for their day to day running.

However, the ICAC did recommend that political parties be required to make public disclose complete audited financial statements annually.

The ICAC said NSW had the most restrictive electoral donation laws in Australia. “But restrictive rules do not make regulation effective. If the framework of enforcement, scrutiny by civil society, incentives and penalties does not support compliance with the rules, then rules alone will be ineffective.”