The Sydney Morning Herald has an article on the effect it will have on any charity or NGO, both non-profit and other types, which receives any funding from outside of Australia. For a lot of organisations, especially smaller ones like advocates or support groups for various forms of disability and other health issues, this is the difference between existing and not.
I just started reading it. Wow, this is pretty fucked. This has nothing to do with the Foreign Donations they claim. At worse I thought they they would be attacking the tax-deductible status, but they are actually criminalising it. It is pure censorship.
From what I can figure out, this bill places anyone who even remotely expresses a political opinion outside of news media, academia or a political party (and even in private conversation) to be subjected to have their activities and finances placed under a Microscope, regardless of actual receiving of gifts or what they state publicly. Receiving donations electronically would be hard because they need to be sure that the person sending the donation is physically located in Australia, and the transaction can’t touch anywhere outside of Australia. Looks like Cash is king for donations.