Climate 200 receives $5.9m in donations in 2023-24 financial year

Climate 200, which donated to independent MPs, has emerged as a huge beneficiary of political donations — receiving more than minor parties combined. See the top 20 donors.

Two in five of Australia’s top non-union political donors gave cash to teal fundraising vehicle Climate 200 and its independent MPs last financial year, signalling the major parties will face another a well-funded election challenge.

Though denying its activities amount to a political party, Climate 200 emerged as a huge beneficiary of donations disclosed to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) in 2023-24, receiving $5.9 million — more than minor parties like One Nation, the Libertarian Party, Katter’s Australian Party, the Jacqui Lambie Network and Australian Christians combined.

Seven of the 20 largest individual and corporate political donors last financial year gave money to Climate 200, with investors Rob Keldoulis and Marcus Catsaras leading the pack with donations of about $1m each.

In addition to receiving funds, Climate 200 itself donated $473,222 to sitting teal MPs Kylea Tink, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Zoe Daniel, Zali Steggall, Kate Chaney and Allegra Spender.

The Nationals and Liberal Party combined received the largest total income of $73.5m, which included both political donations, public funding from the AEC as well as other payments.

Labor received $67.5m, while Greens were paid $17.1m.

Anthony Albanese’s Labor received $67.5m in funding in the last financial year, it has been revealed. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Analysis of the declarations found a whopping 48 per cent of the Coalition’s income was from unknown sources as the individual donations did not meet the current reporting threshold of $16,300.

The origins of about 38 per cent of Labor’s donations 45 per cent of the Greens’ money was also not required to be disclosed.

The single biggest individual donor in 2023-24 was packaging billionaire Anthony Pratt through his company Pratt Holdings, who gave $1m to Anthony Albanese’s campaign fund.

About a month after the January 2024 donation, the Prime Minister was among a crowd of influential guests who attended a private event held by Mr Pratt where pop star Katy Perry performed.

Other major payments to Labor included $1.02m from the United Workers Union and $764,846 from the Shop Distributive & Allied Employees (SDA) Union.

The Liberal’s biggest donors were two of the party’s associated entities, Vapold and the Cormack Foundation, which gave $4.9m and $1.17m respectively.

The Coalition also received $400,000 from mining billionaire Gina Rinehart through her company Hancock Prospecting, with other major donations including $500,000 from Meriton Property Services and $300,835 from the National Australia Bank.

Labor is currently in talks with the Senate crossbench and Coalition to pass proposed electoral reforms that would dramatically lower the reporting threshold to $1000, and also create real-time disclosure rather than the current annual system.

The government’s draft legislation also seeks to limit the influence of individual wealthy donors, with caps limiting donations to $600,000.

Campaign spending would also be limited to $90m nationwide for parties and $800,000 for individual candidates — a move that would curtail spending for independents like the teal MPs.

Originally published as Climate 200 receives $5.9m in donations in 2023-24 financial year