Liberals cashed up to take on union war chest

The Liberal Party has raised enough funds to take on Labor despite its union-inspired advertising war chest.

Berowra MP Julian Leeser. Picture: AAP

The Liberal Party has managed to raise enough funds to take on Labor at the election, despite the absence of Malcolm Turnbull’s donations, Julie Bishop’s fundraising and the challenge of taking on a federal election immediately after a NSW campaign.

Labor may have a union-­created war chest but the Liberal Party has been able to do enough to run television ads for the campaig­n, party sources said.

“We’re in better financial shape than we were three years ago,” one federal Liberal source said.

The Australian reported last year that the party was unable to call an early election because of concerns over fundraising.

In 2016, former prime minister Mr Turnbull had to dip into his own pockets and donate $1.75 million to the Liberal Party for its campaign.

“We fundraise separately for state and federal. Of course it’s not optimal to be doing these two in a row, but it has actually been quite strong,” one NSW Liberal source said. “There’s been good support for the party and the PM coming through.”

Labor has met its targets for the campaign, including in NSW where the party has also had to wrestle with the demands of a state campaign, mostly because of a belief­ for some months that a Shorten government would be elected, leading to a healthy turn-up of donors to functions.

One Liberal source said of NSW fundraising efforts: “Julian Leeser, (Wentworth candidate) Dave Sharma, Tony Abbott, Alex Hawke — about three or four of them have raised a lot.”

Many MPs had met fundraising targets, although Bennelong MP John Alexander and Hughes MP Craig Kelly had ­struggled to raise funds.

The Liberal Party is currently funding positive ads, with negative ads to follow later in the campaign.