Hidden donors handed more than $90m in “dark money” to Australian political parties in the financial year of the last federal election, new analysis shows.
Australia’s weak donation disclosure rules allow for the source of large swathes of money to be hidden from public view.
A new Centre for Public Integrity analysis of donations data released last week shows the source of $91.32m of party income – almost one-quarter of total party income – was hidden from public view in 2021-22.
The source of money is generally hidden from public view where donations are less than $14,500 – the Australian Electoral Commission’s disclosure threshold in 2021-22 – even if a single donor splits up a larger donation into multiple instalments below that amount.
Corporations that pay political parties significant sums of money as membership of their business forums – including the Liberals’ Australian Business Network and Labor’s business forum – are also not required to disclose their payments publicly. That’s despite criticism that the observer programs are effectively cash-for-access schemes.
The amount of dark money given to political parties in the 2021-22 election year was significantly up on the 12 months prior, when the source of $68.26m in funds was unknown. The analysis suggests that $1.53bn in dark money has been given to parties since 1998-99.
The analysis will place further pressure on the government to push ahead with its promised donation disclosure reforms, which would reduce the disclosure threshold from its current level of $15,200 to $1,000.
The need for disclosure reforms was further highlighted by a report in the Nine newspapers this week that gambling giant Sportsbet paid $8,960 for a dinner to support communication minister Michelle Rowland’s election campaign in March and then donated $10,000 just before polling day. The Centre for Public Integrity’s analysis of donations data also reveals the degree to which the hotel and gaming industry has pumped money into both Labor and the Coalition.
From 1998-99 to 2020-21, the hotels industry donated $15.2m and the gaming industry donated $8.6m, with the top donors being the Australian Hotels Association, Tabcorp, ClubsNSW and Crown.
University of Melbourne law professor Joo-Cheong Tham, a Centre for Public Integrity board member, said the need for reform was urgent.
“Donations under $15,000 are not currently captured by our disclosure system. Neither is income from party fundraisers or business forum membership fees,” he said. “This is allowing millions to pass through our system undisclosed. We urgently need to broaden the definition of donation and bring the disclosure threshold down to $1,000.”
Former New South Wales Liberal minister Michael Yabsley, once a key party fundraiser who has since called for disclosure reforms, said any lowering of the disclosure threshold must be accompanied by tougher enforcement.
Yabsley told the Guardian that changes to the disclosure rules must be kept simple, including lowering the threshold to $200, to allow for easier and more effective enforcement.
That enforcement should involve the threat of custodial sentences for breaches, he said.
“People say, ‘oh, that’s a bit tough’, but there are penalties in the form of custodial services that pertain to a lot of forms of white-collar crime,” he said. “And I can’t think of anything more important than preserving the integrity of the democratic system.
“If someone is stupid enough to say, ‘OK, we’ve worked out a way to get $500,000 to the Liberal party or the Labor party’, but then they see that the downside of doing that is seven years in the slammer, they might think twice about doing that.”
