Secret $200,000 donation to Kevin Rudd paid back

THE Labor Party has given back a secret $200,000 donation to a campaign to save Kevin Rudd’s seat at last year’s election.

09 Mar 2007 : Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd (ALP) announces the resignation of Shadow Attorney-General Kelvin Thompson for pro...

THE Labor Party has given back a secret $200,000 donation from a Taiwanese businessman who funded an 11th-hour campaign blitz to save Kevin Rudd’s seat at last year’s election.

ALP officials refunded the donation on Monday to Taipei-based developer Kung Chi Yuan amid fears it had breached Queensland electoral laws.

The donation, and its funding of targeted polling in the then- prime minister’s South Brisbane seat of Griffith — without the knowledge of state and federal ALP officials — has caused an irreconcilable split between Queensland Labor and its longtime pollsters, UMR Research.

The pollsters, which state Labor has used for more than 20 years, refused to refund the $200,000 after party officials last month received legal advice the donation may have been illegal.

The ALP’s national secretary, George Wright, confirmed the federal secretariat last week paid the $200,000 to UMR — after receiving a detailed invoice of the “program of research’’ in Griffith — and that the pollster then returned the amount to the Queensland division.

The money was then refunded to Mr Kung in a direct reversal of the original bank transfer.

It is believed Mr Rudd helped organise the donation from Mr Kung — who owns a house in Griffith, and has been described by the former prime minister as a “longtime friend’’ — which was paid directly into the branch account so that the money was not spent in the general campaign.

Mr Wright said the donation should have passed through Labor headquarters. “The donation and the work should have come through the federal secretariat and that is now what has happened,’’ he said.

“We are satisfied with the work that was done by UMR and we have been invoiced for it.

“All declarations will be made in an appropriate way.’’

ALP state secretary Anthony Chisholm said he had now informed the Electoral Commission of Queensland that the money had been returned to Mr Kung, who lives in Taiwan.

“As soon as we became aware of this we acted … and the ECQ has been notified,’’ he said.

Mr Chisholm said he would not comment on UMR’s relationship with Queensland Labor after sources told The Australian that the division would not use the pollster again.

The money — believed to be one of the biggest single donations in the federal campaign — was paid directly into Mr Rudd’s Griffith electorate branch ­account on September 3.

Within hours, the money was handed over to UMR, which said it paid for a “program of research’’ involving focus groups and “robo’’ calls to voters — commissioned by Mr Rudd during last year’s campaign.

ALP officials discovered the donation earlier this month during an audit ordered after the Griffith Federal Electoral Council failed to file its twice-yearly ­financial report to head office in late January.