Australia’s biggest political donors revealed

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s reported $1 million donation to the Liberal Party’s election campaign has not appeared in the Australian Election Commission’s donation disclosure.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s reported $1 million donation to the Liberal Party’s election campaign has not appeared in the Australian Election Commission’s donation disclosure but several of his senior colleagues dug into their own pockets to support the campaign.

The AEC has reported the Liberal Party declared $14.7 million in donations, including a $1.3 million donation from mining tycoon Paul Marks who is also a friend of former prime minister Tony Abbott.

Biggest donors revealed

Mr Mark’s donation was the year’s biggest, followed by $860,000 from property development and investment company Kingold Group owned by Chinese-born billionaire Chau Chak Wing, $850,000 from Pratt Holdings, $636,200 from Village Roadshow and $636,000 from businessman and long-time GetUp! supporter Graeme Wood.
Donations and other receipts by party. Les Hewitt

Chinese mining mogul and steel mill owner Sally Zou donated $400,000 to the Liberal party while Huang Xiangmo, the chairman of property developer Yuhu Group, donated $206,000 via separate entities, mostly to the Liberal party. The Moufarrige family behind Servcorp donated $350,000 to the Liberal party.

Mr Turnbull’s reported donation has not yet been discovered, with speculation swirling in Canberra that the donation may have been made on the last day of the campaign, which would dodge this year’s reporting requirements and would mean it could be reported as late as February 2018.

While the reports had no record of Mr Turnbull’s reported $1 million loan to the Liberal Party, there was another million-dollar lender.

Palmer loans $1m to PUP

Clive Palmer loaned $912,631 to his Palmer United Party through his holding company Mineralogy, plus a $121,176 personal loan he made to the party, a total of $1,033,807.
Top donors and recipient party Les Hewitt

Including the loans, Mr Palmer provided $1.72 million funding for PUP, including $400,022 in donations from Mineralogy and the controversial $288,515 donated by companies in his Queensland Nickel operation before a liquidator was appointed.

On top of the $630,000 that businessman Graeme Wood gave to the Greens and $6000 to Labor, election returns released in December show he also contributed $200,000 to the election campaign of former independent Tony Windsor, who failed to unseat Barnaby Joyce from New England.

Labor raises $10.3m

.
The data shows Finance Minister Mathias Cormann’s election committee donated $170,000, Peter Dutton’s and Simon Birmingham’s local branches donated $50,000, and $20,000 respectively.

Chinese-born billionaire Chau Chak Wing has found a double standard is applied to Australians of non-Anglo origin. Sahlan Hayes

Controversial Liberal data company Parakeelia paid out almost $950,000 in donations and other receipts.

Meanwhile, nationally the Labor Party received $36.5 million in receipts including $10.4 million from donations.

One of Labor’s biggest source of funds was from the Canberra-based 1973 Foundation which donated more than $357,000 and $200,000 in other receipts. The Foundation makes its money from poker machines and revenues at Canberra Labor clubs.

Both parties accrued significant debts during the election year, with Labor declaring $36.3 million in debt, and the Liberal Party reporting $34.6 million in debts.

Property developers generous

Billionaire property developers through to one of China’s wealthiest men Wang Jianlin’s Wanda Group made big donations to both parties during the year.

Billionaire John Gandel’s Gandel Group $110,000 to the ALP and $156,000 to the Liberal Party while the Lowy family’s Westfield Corporation gave $160,000 to both sides.

A raft of small developers including Chris Vitale’s Point Corp and Luke Hartman’s Metro Property Development donated to both sides of politics while Wanda Ridong, which is building a giant resort on the Gold Coast donated $20,000 to the Liberal National Party.

Minor parties big winners

The year’s disclosure shows minor parties were recipients of significant donations. Perth’s prominent orthopaedic surgeon Tony Robinson donated $537,000 to Australian Liberty Alliance, an anti-Islam party that has been touted as Australia’s Donald Trump party.

Meanwhile BRW Rich Lister Geoff Harris, the co-founder of Flight Centre, donated $220,000 to Sustainable Australia, a political party which advocates for lower population growth, under the company name 26 Summers. His former wife and philanthrope Susan also poured $300,000 into the political party through a corporate vehicle Rufolo.

Flux Party co-founders Max Kaye and Nathan Spataro, along with Tomas Bernad and Tristan Grace, donated $185,000 to their own political party via a corporate entity Exo One.

Flux is a new political party set up in 2016 which has no political platform. Instead it aims to allow members of the public to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on each bill before parliament via a smartphone app.

Push for more disclosure

Opposition leader Bill Shorten restated on Tuesday Labor’s promise to to clamp down on foreign donations, reduce the disclosure threshold from $13,200 to $1000 and provide greater accountability.

“It is long past time we lowered the disclosure threshold from $13,200 to $1,000,” he said.
Mr Shorten also asked why Mr Turnbull had not yet declared his rumoured donation.
“You’ve all asked him in the media,” he said.  “He’s always known this day would come.”

The Australian Electoral Commission says parties must disclose their donors identities each financial year, if their contributions exceed $13,000.

Liberal Party finances took a hit last year when the NSW Electoral Commission announced it was withholding $4.4 million in public funding from the NSW Liberals until the party formally disclosed who donated $693,000 to it via a controversial fundraising body, the Free Enterprise Foundation.