Labor Party debts punch $15m hole in Albanese war chest

Anthony Albanese’s election-year fundraising war chest will be smaller than Bill Shorten’s in 2019 as Labor is weighed down by debts approaching $3m.

Anthony Albanese during question time in the House of Representatives in Canberra on Monday. Picture: Mike Bowers

Anthony Albanese’s election-year fundraising war chest is forecast to be $15m lower than Bill Shorten’s in 2019 as Labor is weighed down by debts approaching $3m.

With the party struggling to raise funds after losing three consecutive elections, The Australian can reveal Labor has forecast it will nearly double its debt from $1.28m — posted in 2019-20 — to $2.79m this financial year, according to the party’s tightly held financial projections.

Labor has forecast it will earn a total income of $35m in the 2021-22 financial year — nearly $15m less than in the 2018-19 financial year when Mr Shorten was expected to win the election.

Labor figures who have seen the projections told The Australian they were based on the assumption the next federal poll would be held in March 2022.

The bulk of the income expected in 2021-22, at $26.9m, is predicted to come from the Australian Electoral Commission in public funding based on the party’s primary vote at the next election.

The projected income from the AEC, and a lower campaign spend, will be relied upon to bring the party’s books to a $1.6m surplus at the end of 2022.

Labor sources told The Australian the impact on revenues was driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and public belief Scott Morrison was the frontrunner to win the election.

ALP president Wayne Swan declined to comment on the projections. But he confirmed the party was concerned it would be “outgunned in spending by the Coalition and its plutocrat partners like Clive Palmer”.

“We have got a big task to lift our fundraising effort in the next 12 months,” Mr Swan said.

“Particularly from small donations from punters.

“The path ahead for the ALP is to secure people power against the might of the plutocrat spend on the Liberals.”

The party’s total expenditure in 2021-22 is forecast to be $31m, compared to $51m spent in the ­financial year of the 2019 poll.

Anthony Albanese, right, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Parliament House in Canberra on Monday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

This includes an advertising and research spend of $22m, field campaigning costs of $230,000, travel costs of $938,050, office costs of $561,000 and staff costs of $2.73m.

Labor sources said the $51m of expenditure in 2018-19 was bloated because it included campaign spending on the five Super Saturday by-elections and $1m on a ­national conference.

The national conference is not part of the party’s budget ahead of the 2022 election, in a sign senior party figures are expecting it to not go ahead.

Labor expects to receive $1.2m in donations from individuals and $750,000 from organisations in 2021-22.

The party’s organisational wing also expects to pocket $1.7m from unions and other affiliates over the course of the parliamentary term. But the union money is dwarfed by expectations that Labor will raise $7.9m from business over three years. This includes $3.3m from business in 2019-20, $2m in 2020-21 and $2.67m in 2021-22.

The projections provoked a senior Labor figure into declaring the “greatest myth in Australian politics” was Labor’s reliance on union funding, given it received significantly more from business.

The Australian can also reveal veteran Labor senator Kim Carr has left the party’s national executive. Senator Carr, a long-term rival of Mr Albanese within the party’s Left faction, is the longest-serving member of the national executive after first being elected to the body in 1994.

He has been replaced by Victorian Labor Party president Susie Byers, from the Left faction.

In the 2018-19 financial year, the federal Liberal Party registered earnings of $48m and spending of $43m. It was also $3.9m in debt.

Labor has called for an overhaul of campaign funding laws after Mr Palmer spent $83m in the 2019 election — the ads being particularly critical of Mr Shorten and Labor.

Malcolm Turnbull was forced to donate $1.75m to the Liberal campaign in 2016 because the party was struggling to raise funds.

Liberal sources have also conceded the COVID-19 pandemic has created a more challenging fundraising environment.

Labor received a significant three-point boost to its primary vote in the latest Newspoll after trailing the Coalition since the COVID-19 pandemic, rising from 33 per cent to 36 per cent, while the Coalition’s primary vote fell from 43 per cent to 41 per cent.

The two major parties are now deadlocked 50-50 on a two-party-preferred basis.