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AAP
AAP
Politics
Maeve Bannister

Final funds to election winners and losers

Clive Palmer's United Australia Party got back just a fraction of what it spent in the campaign. (Jono Searle/AAP PHOTOS) (AAP)

Political parties and candidates have received their final payments from the elections watchdog with the Labor Party claiming the lion's share while billionaire Clive Palmer gets back a fraction of what he spent during the campaign.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) paid back nearly $76 million to eligible political parties, candidates or Senate groups to reimburse them for electoral expenditure in the 2022 federal election, equivalent to about $2.90 per vote.

Parties and candidates who received at least four per cent of formal first preference votes at the election got an automatic payment, but needed to claim extra funds for additional votes.

The Labor Party had the largest return of more than $27 million followed by the Liberal Party with just over $26.5 million.

After increasing their seats in both houses of parliament, the collective federal, NSW, Queensland, Victorian and WA branches of the Greens received nearly $11 million.

The United Australia Party received just under $2 million.

UAP founder Clive Palmer reportedly spent more than $100 million on the national election campaign, which secured one Senate seat for Victorian candidate Ralph Babet.

Mr Palmer voluntarily deregistered the party in September, which Senator Babet said was for "administrative reasons".

One Nation received just over $3 million while the Nationals got back nearly $3.5 million for the NSW, WA and Victorian branches.

This year the AEC paid almost $2 million back to independent candidates, up from just over $1 million at the 2019 election.

Independent ACT senator David Pocock, who successfully ousted former Liberal senator Zed Seselja, got $176,023 back.

Lower house independents Zali Steggall, Helen Haines and Monique Ryan received more than $120,000.

Dai Le, who defeated Labor candidate Kristina Keneally, was returned nearly $74,000.

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