Election 2025: Liberal Bennelong candidate Scott Yung denies past disclosure breach

The Liberal candidate for Sydney’s marginal Bennelong, Scott Yung, endorsed by Peter Dutton, contracted advertising help in a past campaign without informing electoral authorities.

Scott Yung, who came close to unseating future Premier Chris Minns in 2019, has seen his federal campaign for Bennelong threatened by historic campaign spending never revealed to the NSW Electoral Commission. Picture: Jeremy Piper

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The NSW Liberal Party has refused to say if it will refer Liberal Bennelong candidate Scott Yung to the state Electoral Commission over a potential historic electoral funding breach

Mr Yung has been personally endorsed by Peter Dutton and former prime minister John Howard for the northern Sydney seat and is seen as favourite in his effort to win back what is the country’s most marginal seat from Labor’s Jerome Laxale.

However, his campaign hit a snag after he was found to have enlisted the help of a PR firm to produce Chinese-language social media advertorials which he did not declare to the NSW Electoral Commission five years ago.

On Thursday, Mr Yung denied any wrongdoing, saying the services had been volunteered willingly and thus were not subject to disclosure laws – the NSW Electoral Funding act says voluntary labour falls outside the definition of a “gift”.

“The individual supported my campaign in a voluntary capacity. Volunteer labour is not considered a donation under the legislation, and thus did not need to be disclosed,” Mr Yung said.

However, guidelines for the act state: “A volunteer does not include a person whose labour consists of providing products or services that the person supplies as a function of his/her profession or trade ... the provision of those services is a political donation”.

If the NSW state branch suspects any breach of the Electoral Funding Act by Mr Yung it is obligated to report him for investigation or risk criminal charges.

It represents new risk for a state branch that only recently emerged from a leadership crisis after the federal Liberal Party placed it into administration over a failure to enrol 140 local government candidates in August.

In a preselection endorsement letter obtained by The Australian, Mr Dutton praises Mr Yung’s efforts contesting the state electorate of Kogarah in 2019, making specific mention of Mr Yung’s tactical use of social media in the contest where he faced down future Premier Chris Minns.

“In NSW, Scott has demonstrated his strength as a Liberal Party candidate and skill as a campaigner when he stood for Kogarah. In the 2019 state election, Scott mobilised more than 500 volunteers and gained more than 200,000 followers on social media in eight weeks,” Mr Dutton wrote.

“As a principled and intelligent man with much to offer his community, I am pleased to provide this reference for Scott’s preselection.”

Then-NSW treasurer Dominic Perrottet, later premier, with Mr Yung during his 2019 contest. Picture: Dylan Robinson

Mr Dutton also praised Mr Yung’s aptitude for “articulating Liberal values”.

“The son of Chinese migrants, Scott has a first-hand appreciation for the multicultural success which underpins our national achievement. He believes in the Liberal values of hard work, individual responsibility and aspiration,” he wrote.

Mr Yung enlisted the Sydney-based consultancy group Covert during the 2019 contest to manage his campaign efforts across Chinese-language social media platforms. This service was not listed with the NSW Electoral Commission as an electoral expense or in-kind donation.

Covert lists its campaign work for Mr Yung among its online portfolio.

“Covert approached Scott Yung, a member of the Liberal Party of NSW while he was running for the 2019 Kogarah MP seat. The Kogarah seat had been Labour (sic) since 1953, however, Scott Yung’s background as an Australian-Chinese had a natural to (sic) influence,” its website reads.

“Covert implemented a social media strategy through Facebook, Instagram and WeChat, to spread Scott’s message and the Liberal Party’s support.

“The Kogarah electoral role (sic) was geographically targeted on Facebook with an approximate reach of 60,000 people over the age of 18. Covert went on to produce articles that were written in Chinese and distributed across WeChat media outlets as a way to build awareness for what Scott Yung stood for in the community.”

The website says the results of its campaign were “undisclosed due to client privacy”, though Mr Yung ultimately lost the election to Mr Minns, albeit with a 5.1 per cent swing in his favour. He did not recontest the seat in 2023.

Mr Yung has previously apologised for over-representing the proceeds earned from a campaign dinner attended by Mr Howard in 2019 after claiming it raised $60,000 in donations.

In an electoral expenditure disclosure log for the period covering the 2019 state election submitted by former NSW Liberal state finance manager Peter Wheatley there is no record of campaign advertising by Covert.

It lists a range of other campaign expenses as small as $250 in value. The greatest expenses listed for the electorate are $46,679 for TV, radio, digital and print advertising by firm KWP, $16,089 for leaflet postage by Liberal affiliate Zion Graphics, $6248 for leaflet delivery and $5262 for campaign ads by Fairfax Media.

Any additional undisclosed funding would bring the party dangerously close to breaching the electoral expenditure cap from the time. NSW Electoral Commission disclosure logs show the state branch paid $105,050 on the Kogarah contest of a maximum allowable spending cap of $122,900.

Of this $69,028 was put towards political advertising and $30,064 to producing and distributing election material. Mr Yung also contributed $5000 in “self-funding”.

Mr Dutton was contacted for comment.