Donations dry up as business dumps WA Libs

The Liberal Party will enter the Western Australian election campaign in its weakest financial position in more than a decade.

Dean Nalder.

The Liberal Party will enter the Western Australian election campaign in its weakest financial position in more than a decade, with funding for the party having plunged in recent years.

Data recently released by the West Australian Electoral Commission shows that the donations and other income to the state branch of the Liberal Party in the last financial year had almost halved from the prior year, and were down almost 65 per cent from the peak recorded in 2012-13.

The $4.5m in gifts and income collected by the party was down from $9m the previous year, when the last federal election was held.

While fundraising efforts by all political parties have been impacted by the COVID crisis, the fall in income in the West Australian branch of the Labor Party was more modest. Labor collected $5.1m in the 2020 financial year, down from $6.5m in 2019.

On top of the impact from COVID, fundraising by all parties is generally much weaker in years without a state or federal election.

But the party has struggled for support from some of its usual backers, as it faces an uphill battle against a Labor government led by popular Premier Mark McGowan.

Traditional high-profile and deep-pocketed backers of the West Australian Liberal Party such as property developer Nigel Satterley and high-profile businessman John Poynton have deserted the party in recent years, concerned about the influence of conservative powerbrokers.

The Liberal Party had typically out-raised the Labor Party by $2 for every $1 for much of the past decade, but the funding has equalised in recent years following the landslide defeat of Colin Barnett’s government in the 2017 election.

The latest figures came under the leadership of Liza Harvey, who resigned in December.

Leadership aspirant Dean Nalder touted his strong ties to the business community and his fundraising capacity when pitching to replace Ms Harvey, but he ultimately dropped out of the race after realising he did not have the numbers. He has since resigned from politics.

The Liberals’ new leader, the 33-year-old Zak Kirkup, told The Weekend Australian he did not believe there was an issue with its funding and he was seeing “more interest than ever” in the party from across the community.

“It is always difficult in opposition to raise money, to get those donations, but we have a real opportunity here to talk about the values of Liberal Party and I think what will come with that is more interest from the community in who we are as a party and a willingness to work with us on solving the problems the future,” Mr Kirkup said.

Mr Satterley, whose Satterley Property Group is one of Australia’s largest private residential property developers, has turned in recent years from a long-term supporter of the WA Liberal Party to one of its more vocal critics.

He told The Australian that he and other members of the business community were wary of the influence wielded within the party by conservative Liberal powerbrokers Peter Collier and Nick Goiran, whom he has nicknamed the “undertaker” and “cremator” respectively.

“The business community will certainly support the federal campaigns but is wary of donating to the state fund,” he said.

“You can see that the business community won’t give money because of the influence of these two people.”