Familiar faces and virtual unknowns pumping millions into politics – outside the big parties

Wealthy donors have poured millions of dollars into political action groups in a bid to shape decisions on climate change and conservative social issues, escalating a contest for cash after the main political parties collected almost $200 million between them last year.

Young energy trader Marcus Catsaras gave $1 million to Climate 200 to help it influence federal policies to favour renewable energy, while a Perth investor donated $1 million to conservative group Advance Australia while it campaigned against the Indigenous Voice.

Marcus Catsaras (left), Trevor St Baker, Clive Palmer, Anthony Pratt and Gina Rinehart were named as significant political donors in forms lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission.

The donations highlight the race among new donors to add firepower to the campaign groups that operate outside the big political parties, while mining magnate Gina Rinehart backed the Liberals with $150,000 and packaging boss Anthony Pratt favoured Labor with $1 million.

With federal parliament debating curbs on gambling advertising, Sportsbet donated $203,000 to the major parties, while PwC increased its donations to $369,000 while the consulting giant faced penalties for misusing confidential Treasury briefings to give tax advice to clients.

Other wealthy donors could only be revealed after checks on company names to identify the individuals behind the payments, as groups including Transparency International and the Centre for Public Integrity called for reforms to improve disclosure.

“This shows the need for greater transparency about the ownership of companies and trusts that are donating to political campaigns,” said Transparency International Australia chief Clancy Moore.

PwC donated a combined $369,000 to the Labor and Liberal parties in the 2022-23 financial year.Credit: Martin Ollman

“The systemic issue is about the arms race in political funding because it requires candidates and parties to raise millions of dollars to run their campaigns.”

The Albanese government is mulling changes to campaign finance laws that could cap the amount donors could give to parties, in a bid to curtail the influence of money in politics. The government has said these laws will be passed before the next election, meaning aggregate donations could fall once those new rules are in place.

Mining billionaire Clive Palmer led the list of donors with $7.1 million to his United Australia Party, signalling his ongoing political plans after he gave the party $117 million before the last election and won a single seat in the Senate.

One of the biggest donations, worth $1 million for Advance Australia, came from a little-known Perth investment company.

Donations flooded in from consulting firms that often seek contracts with federal agencies, with PwC donating about $224,000 to Labor and $145,000 to the Coalition, according to documents lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission for the 2022-23 financial year. The firm said last year it would cease donations, with none to be made this financial year.

Rival accounting and consulting group Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu gave $177,126 to the major parties, with a slightly bigger share going to Labor, while KPMG donated $163,200 to both sides and also gave slightly more to Labor.

The other member of the “big four” consultancies, EY (Ernst & Young), gave $227,737 to the major parties and heavily favoured Labor with $186,732 of that total.

The Liberal Party and its state divisions gathered more than $110 million in total receipts in the past financial year. This compared with Labor’s $83 million. These figures included public funding, investment earnings, other receipts as well as donations.

In other business donations, airline Regional Express gave $110,189 to the Liberals and Nationals, and Philip Morris gave $75,000 to the Nationals, a controversial donation given other parties have refused to accept money from the tobacco company.

Adani Mining, the Indian-owned company developing a major coal mine in Queensland against years of objections from environmental groups, gave $17,500 to the Liberal National Party in Queensland.

The annual disclosures are released on February 1 each year through the publication of hundreds of pages of forms lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission, and present a challenge when calculating the totals from sometimes conflicting documents.

In one example of the errors in the system, the commission recorded $135 million in receipts for Labor’s ACT division when the actual number was $1.4 million.

The results confirm the scale of the financial support for major unions including the ACTU, which recorded $23 million in total receipts, of which it said $783,000 went on electoral expenditure. The total receipts include all forms of funding, rather than donations, but are a measure of financial resources.

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Association recorded $123.2 million in total receipts, compared to $10.3 million for the Australian Education Union, there was $68.4 million for the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union’s electrical division and $29.1 million for the Community and Public Sector Union.

The highest receipts figure among unions was the $262.9 million recorded by the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union.

The funding for peak industry groups included $6.1 million for the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and $14.9 million for the Business Council of Australia.

Conservative group Advance Australia recorded $5.2 million in receipts for the year, including the donation of $1 million from the Perth investor.

Advance also gained donations from regular supporters including businessman Marcus Blackmore ($25,000), storage entrepreneur Sam Kennard ($125,000 through his company Siesta Holdings) and Melbourne Storm director Brett Ralph ($50,000 through his company JMR Management Consultancy Services).

Perth doctor Bryant Macfie gave Advance $100,000 and Sydney millionaire Rodney O’Neil gave the organisation $100,000 through his companies, Sixmilebridge and Nedigi.

The donors showed support for Advance’s numerous other causes prior to its campaign against the Voice to Parliament.

Former fund manager Simon Fenwick, who has backed Advance for several years and vowed to help finance the campaign against the Voice, gave the group $400,000 last financial year through his Silver River family trust.

Climate 200, the campaign group that supported “teal” independents at the last election, raised $3.5 million including the payment from Catsaras, as well as $1.1 million from Sydney entrepreneur Robert Keldoulis and $300,000 from LB Conservation trust, set up by Lisa Barlow, whose family made millions from the 7-Eleven retail chain.

Heston Russell, the former commando turned political activist, donated $650,000 of his own money to set up the Australian Values Party, but did not succeed in winning a seat in the Senate at the last election. In October, the ABC was ordered to pay $390,000 to Russell after defamatory reports wrongly suggested he was involved in killing an Afghan prisoner.

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