The price of political influence

Despite promises of reform when the Albanese Government was elected, Australia’s political donation laws remain unchanged, which is why it took until last week to find out who was donating in the last financial year, via the AEC’s Transparency Register.

So where was the money flowing? Despite spending much less than normal, Clive Palmer holds the record in 2022/23, donating over $7 million to his own party via the mining company Mineralogy. Visy cardboard king and Trump mate Anthony Pratt appears to have switched financial allegiances in this country, giving $1 million to the ALP and nothing to the Liberals (in previous years he’s thrown large amounts of money in both directions).

The fossil fuel industries, led by Woodside and Santos, have again received remarkable bang for their buck, jointly spending a bit over a million dollars on the major parties in return for billions in shareholder returns. The gambling, banking and pharmaceutical industries also feature prominently in the donations register, as do the four big consulting firms, including the disgraced PwC.

The financial backers of the far right’s answer to GetUp, now called Advance, are beginning to emerge from the shadows, including a retired Perth car dealer named Brian Henderson ($1 million), venture capitalist Trevor St Baker ($50,000), Kennard Self Storage’s Sam Kennard ($115,000), Baker’s Delight founder Roger Gillespie ($20,000), vitamin czar Marcus Blackmore ($25,000) and Melbourne Storm director and transport magnate Brett Ralph ($50,000).

Gina Rinehart donated $150,000 to the Liberal Party (as much as she makes in less than 27 minutes, according to howrichareyou.com.au), with multinational tobacco company Philip Morris giving $75,000 to the Nationals.

At the opposite political extreme, teal-backers Climate 200 received financial support from Nick and Sandra Fairfax ($20,000), non-alcoholic beer company Heaps Normal (almost $18,000), as well as substantial donations from two Greek Australians, international weather analyst Marcus Catsaras and Sydney share trader Robert Keldoulis. Together, their contributions amount to over $2 million.

The Greens received $25 million in donations in 2022-23, including $125,000 from the South Australian estate of David Walsh. The Nationals received less than this, while the ALP received over $80 million in financial donations. The Liberals topped the donations register with over $110m.

The AEC says the details of donation spending on the Voice referendum won’t be available until 1 April 2024, 24 weeks after voting day.

What else?

The latest official political donation numbers include $57 million of so-called ‘dark money’, which got around the need for detailed AEC reporting for various dodgy reasons. The Liberal party received over $25 million of this unexplained cash, while Labor received over $22 million.

As a response to this anti-democratic situation, the Australia Institute is calling for real time disclosures of political donations as soon as possible, and an end to the current dark money loopholes, with donations under $15,000 not needing to be disclosed, along with ‘other receipts’ from things such as gifts and membership/affiliation fees.

There are also renewed calls for ministerial diaries to be made public and truth in political advertising.

Although jobs for the boys and girls and other financial ways of exerting political influence in Australia are not captured by the AEC data, it remains shocking how cheap it is to secure serious political influence over the major parties. Why buy half a house in Sydney when you can get the ear of a political party or government for less?

While it’s made some noises about reforming the donations situation (an interim report drew strong criticism from both the opposition and independents, for different reasons), the Albanese Government is fast running out of time to introduce legislation to deal with these issues in this term.

At the next federal election, donations to political parties and interests are expected to beat all records, taking us closer to the disastrous situation in the United States, where the democratic process is entirely captured by corporate interests.

Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.

Long ago, he did work experience in Parliament House with Mungo MacCallum.