Election 2025: More climate cash rains on teal Zoe Daniel in Goldstein

Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 has pumped another $50,000 into Zoe Daniel’s campaign in the knife-edge race for Goldstein.

Climate 200’s Simon Holmes a Court, left, and Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel.

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Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 has pumped another $50,000 into teal MP Zoe Daniel’s campaign in the knife-edge race for Goldstein.

The donation on April 4 comes on top of $420,000 Climate 200 has already poured into the tight contest for the Melbourne bayside seat.

Separately, a Climate 200 advisory council member donated $5000 and $4800 on April 8 to help bankroll the teal-coloured Tesla-driving MP who defeated Liberal MP Tim Wilson at the 2022 federal election.

“The fact that The Australian has noted these donations on Zoe’s website is a wonderful reflection of the transparency underpinning independent campaigns,” a spokesperson for the teal said.

“Zoe urges the major parties to adopt similar timely transparency. As always funds gratefully received from donors who wish to see politics done differently will be properly accounted for to fund campaign related activities to achieve that outcome.”

Ms Daniel drives a teal-coloured customised Tesla.

The $50,000 Climate 200 donation brings the overall value of cash from climate and integrity activist groups to more than $600,000 as Ms Daniel is locked in a knife-edge contest with Mr Wilson. Integrity group Keep Them Honest has also donated $66,000 to Ms Daniel’s campaign.

As reported by The Australian last month, Climate 200 has donated $420,000 to Ms Daniel’s campaign in the past year. Sydney-based climate campaigner Robert Keldoulis has also given another $100,000 to Ms Daniel.

Mr Holmes a Court is listed as the “convener” of Climate 200 and is described on the group’s website as an “an energy analyst and climate philanthropist”.

Liberal candidate Tim Wilson.

The climate cash injection is detailed on Ms Daniel’s website, which lists more than 3000 political donations since March 2024.

Polling released last month revealed Mr Wilson’s comeback campaign was attracting strong support within the wealthy electorate, with the former Liberals MP leading Ms Daniel 54-46 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.

The polling, conducted by JWS Research, represented a major turnaround from the 2022 election, which swept Ms Daniel into federal parliament in a 52.9-47.1 per cent result.

Victorian Liberals believe they will be outspent by the teal campaign by hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 2025 federal election, with Ms Daniel’s running tally of donations easily passing seven figures.

The Victorian Liberal Party is not disclosing its political donations in real time but said the party will comply with donation laws and disclose them at the appropriate time.