Staggering political donations behind teal independents revealed
They ran matching election campaigns and push the same policy agendas, and now shocking new figures reveal that all six of the “Teal” independents got more than $700,000 each from the same organisation.
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Liberals are slamming the Americanisation of Australian politics after staggering figures revealed self-proclaimed independent candidates received almost $6m in combined funding from a single organisation.
The AEC’s transparency data has finally put a price tag on the “Teal” independents’ war on key former Liberal seats in NSW and Victoria — with each of the six women elected to parliament getting more than $700,000 each from environmental activists Climate 200.
The group raised more than $8m for the federal election and splashed almost $6m to bring the candidates into parliament — each with a push for more climate conscious policies.
But Simon Holmes a Court, the man who is among the leaders of the “community independents movement” — and personally forked out hundreds thousands of dollars to install the candidates to Canberra — claims they are not influenced by Climate 200’s generous donations.
“The independents are loosely part of the community independents movement, which began in 2012 … they are certainly not a party. But I don’t/can’t speak for them,” he said.
Mr Holmes à Court, the son of Australia’s first billionaire Robert Holmes à Court, said Climate 200’s donations from 11,200 donors were designed to level the playing field.
Along with Mr Holmes à Court, billionaire businessmen Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes were among the biggest donors to Climate 200 with the Atlassian founders donating $1.5m and $1.115m respectively.
Former Liberal MP David Sharma, who lost his seat of Wentworth to Teal Allegra Spender, slammed the identical funding of the independent candidates and called for an urgent intervention through expenditure and donation caps before his NSW colleagues suffer the same fate at next year’s state election.
“I don’t think Wentworth had seen anything like that sort of spend in its history – it would be the same for Kooyong and Mackellar. It’s American style spending, and we don’t want that in Australia,” he said.
“If people on the left are concerned about Clive Palmer’s spending, you’d have to be concerned about this as well. Each of these candidates is getting 40 to 50 per cent (in) total funding from a single organisation, that looks like a political party to me.”
Jason Falinski, who lost Mackellar on Sydney’s affluent northern beaches to Sophie Scamps, added: “These people are increasingly looking like privileged shills for some of the most powerful vested interests in Australia.”
Liberal Senator James McGrath — who is on the Electoral Matters Committee — said the donations revealed a case of “rich people buying elections and freezing out mums and dads.”
“The teals in Climate 200 are bringing US style politics to Australia. A million dollars to them is loose change, for everyone else it’s a lotto win,” he said.
“You can’t expect to spend a million on a seat and not have a result. The teals love talking about two things, talking about transparency and taking big money donations. The teals are a political party, they’re lying to Australians when they say they’re not.”
But NSW Teal MPs Ms Spender, Dr Scamps and Kylea Tink doubled-down on their independent status.
Ms Spender said her voting record was proof of her independence. “I’ve voted with all sides on a range of issues, my votes are based on the values and interests of my electorate. I stood on an agenda of climate action, integrity, gender equity and decency – an agenda that voters of Wentworth supported,” she said.
“My campaign had the backing of 1500 local volunteers and over 600 local donors ... Climate 200 supports my values too, and so they chose to support me.”
Dr Scamps told the Telegraph she has never discussed policy with anyone at Climate 200 and “never will”.
“I understand this is a quantum shift in Australian politics as some people are used to the major parties doing the bidding of their donors, but the money raised from the 826 community donors and the 11,200 Climate 200 donors helped to level the playing field in Mackellar against a party political machine that had stacked the electoral system in their favour,” she said.
Ms Tink said she always expected Climate 200 funding would account for 35 to 40 per cent of her total campaign revenue.
Originally published as Staggering political donations behind teal independents revealed
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