Former Newcastle lord mayor and businessman Jeff McCloy was one of the leading donors to the No campaign in last year's Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum.
Australian Electoral Commission records show Mr McCloy gave $169,176 to the Australians for Unity fundraising entity fronted by Northern Territory senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine.
Mr McCloy's donation in August 2023 was among the largest in Australia for the No campaign, behind mining billionaire Clive Palmer's Mineralogy company ($1.9 million), Perth doctor Bryant Macfie ($900,000), former investment fund manager Simon Fenwick ($500,000), Harbig Properties ($250,000), Anne Neate's Riley Street Car Park Pty Ltd ($250,000), Michael Wheeler ($250,000) and Pater Pty Ltd ($200,000).
The Hunter-based property developer said on Thursday that he believed the Voice to Parliament would have been divisive and done little to improve Aboriginal living standards.
"It's not uniting Australia, and the more bureaucratic organisations you have in this country - we've got far too many of them now - the worse it becomes," he said.
"It's simply not the answer, and it would be more divisive and create another layer of bureaucracy, which creates more approval issues throughout the whole country and holds the country back.
"It would be bureaucracy on steroids."
The No vote prevailed with 60 per cent of the vote, despite being outspent in the campaign by the Yes side.
The referendum proposed recognising First Nations people in the constitution via an Indigenous advisory body to Parliament.
The AEC figures show the Yes campaign attracted about $60 million in donations and the No campaign $13 million.
A large proportion of the Yes campaign's donations came from big business, including $7 million from Ramsay Health Care founder Paul Ramsay's charitable foundation, $4.5 million from MYOB software company founder Craig Winkler's Givia trust, $2.5 million from ANZ, $2.2 million from Woodside Energy, $2.1 million from Commonwealth Bank and $2 million each from Westpac, Wesfarmers, Rio Tinto and BHP.
