Victorian Liberal Party President Michael Kroger at war with fundraising entity

A WAR has broken out at the highest levels of the Liberal Party with President Michael Kroger accusing its leading fundraising entity of attempting to improperly influence the party.

Michael Kroger. Picture: Nathan Dyer

A WAR has broken out at the highest levels of the Liberal Party with President Michael Kroger accusing its leading fundraising entity of attempting to improperly influence the party in a way not seen since the 1940s.

In a scathing letter sent to the entire party membership on Thursday Mr Kroger said the directors of the Cormack Foundation, which include conservative heavyweights Hugh Morgan and Charles Goode were demanding “that unless the Liberal Party makes certain constitutional changes to the role of its office bearers, $500,000 of funding will be withheld”.

Mr Kroger said that the proposition “raises a profound matter of principle for the Victorian Liberal Party which is whether the Party should accept tied grants from the business community conditional upon the Liberal Party acting in a certain way”.

He said the issue of the businesses entities dictating policy dated back to the early 1940s when Sir Robert Menzies was a member of the United Australia Party, the predecessor to the Liberal Party.

“I am not aware at any time since 1944 that the Liberal Party, either in the parliamentary or the organisational wings, has given in to demands made of it in exchange for cash,” Mr Kroger said.

The Cormack Foundation is the richest fundraising wing of any political party in Australia worth at least $50 million with cash which originally derived from the Liberal Party’s sale of the radio station 3XY in the 1980s.

In the most recent public records of political donations it was revealed that the Foundation has begun donating to Family First and the Liberal Democrats angering some members of the Liberal Party.

A senior party source said the party had enough money to pay wages for another six months.

The row between Mr Kroger and the Cormack Foundation has been brewing for several months after its chair Hugh Morgan wrote to him late last year saying it would not be handing over any more money unless changes were made to the party’s governance rules stemming from a review initiated in the wake of the embezzlement of the jailed former State Director Damien Mantach.

It comes also as former Howard Government Minister Peter Reith is weighing up challenging Mr Kroger for the Liberal presidency later this year.

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