Mining Companies, Drug Lobby Groups, Banks: Australia’s Biggest Political Donors for 2023

The Australian Electorial Commission has revealed the nation’s political donations for the 2022-23 financial year and the single biggest political donor was a mining company, followed by accounting firms, banks, gas producers and drug lobby groups.

The AEC’s Transparency Register is a database of financial disclosure information that allows users to look up political donations through a refined search engine. The Register contains images of the original returns and a data-export function that assists users in analysing the data outside of the Register.

The top political donor for the 2022-23 federal election year was mining magnate Clive Palmer who donated $7.1 million to his United Australia party through his company Mineralogy. The second-biggest donor was Perth-based proprietary company Hadley Holdings, which gave $1 million to the conservative lobbying group Advance Australia.

The Labor Party itself received $84.4 million in donations, with the biggest coming from billionaire Anthony Pratt. The Liberal Party received $112.7 million in donations, the Nationals received $13.6 million and the Greens recorded an increase of $3 million over the last federal election year, totalling $25.6 million.

Australia's political donations declaration system is notoriously flawed and murky compared to other countries and actually allows for the majority of donations to go unreported – a huge problem for political transparency under a democracy.

In Australia, only political donations above $15,000 are required to be declared, and contributions can be split to stay below the threshold. That means companies or lobbies can make multiple donations below the threshold anonymously without any accountability. This is known as "dark money" and in previous years has made up up to 85 per cent of the total donations to political parties.

As one report from GetUp wrote, "the purpose of having disclosure regimes for political donations is to minimise possible corruption. They are a transparency measure that use the sanitising force of public scrutiny to reduce the likelihood of undue influence being exerted within the political process. Operating at their most effective they enable the public to see who is making payments to the political parties and in what amounts. Armed with this information the public are able to make judgements about the likely significance and influence of payments, and their acceptability in the democratic process."

This anti-corruption measure is in place to hold people in power to account and help voters make decisions on who to vote for. But that's made harder when there is no public information on where parties get most of their money from, especially when the election donor returns are only published once a year – long after the election.

The Australia Institute is calling for the system to be overhauled so disclosures of political donations are published in real-time.

In a statement published on Thursday, Bill Browne, Director of the Australia Institute’s Democracy & Accountability Program, said “Today’s mass release of political donations data highlights the lack of transparency and integrity in Australian politics”.

“We are learning today whether businesses made political donations 18 months ago. These lags and other loopholes make it difficult to see how politicians and political parties are being funded – and by whom.”

Browne said the Albanese Government has already committed to and introduced reforming a number of anti-corruption policies and systems, but added that “political upheaval in other democracies and the misleading and vitriolic claims that swamped the Voice referendum demonstrate that Australia needs strong, democratic institutions".

But given how much money both major parties rake in from private donations, it's unlikely anything will change any time soon.


Aleksandra Bliszczyk is the Deputy Editor of VICE Australia. Follow her on Instagram.

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