Electoral Commission disclosures reveal money spent by Climate 200 and others on independent candidates varies wildly and may be a poor indicator of success at the polls. Andrew Gardiner reports.
One of the quirks of the AEC’s disclosure rules is that the donation data for individual candidates was released today, while donations to the political parties are not disclosed until February 2026.
Of the $29.7m donations declared to a total of 88 independent candidates, about one third ($10.8m) came from crowd-funders Climate 200.
The disclosure shows close to a million dollars was sent to candidates with little realistic chance of winning, while others who barely lost took a fraction of that money. In McPherson (QLD), C200 and one of its heavy hitters, investor Rob Keldoulis, sent $961,409 to Erchana Murray-Bartlett’s campaign. She got 13.7% of the vote (24% after preferences). McPherson is the home of the crowd-funder’s executive director, Byron Fay.
In Calare (NSW), that pair of donors was joined by the linked Regional Voices fund, shelling out a combined $819,470 for Kate Hook’s campaign. Kate got 16.7% of the vote (26.9% after preferences).
With demographic factors at play in McPherson, and another independent running in Calare, pundits gave neither candidate much of a chance, leading some within the movement to attack what they called “wasteful spending on vanity projects”.
Narrow losses
Sending just a bit of that money elsewhere could have made all the difference in a seat like Bean (ACT), where ‘orange teal’ Jessie Price missed out by just 700 votes, or in Fremantle, where Kate Hullet fell 1400 votes short. Yet C200 gave Price’s campaign just $54,000, while earlier reports had Hullet’s late charge for Fremantle bringing in $50,000 from the crowd-funder.
“If we had more funding, we could have been stronger on Social Media and in creating a profile,” Price told MWM. In flush-for-funds McPherson, the social media spend on just two platforms for one late campaign day came to more than $10,000.
A source close to C200 insists that polling and demographics determined who got what this year, and that Hullet’s late candidacy gave them a tight donations window.
But other movement sources were appalled by the numbers, pointing out that Murray-Bartlett was paid for the express purpose of running. They say others, like Caz Heise (Cowper, NSW, $60,000 received), Alex Dyson (Wannon, Vic.) and Kate Hook (Calare, NSW) all received a generous “stipend”, officially for expenses.
“I personally witnessed Caz (Heise) receive money”, former Cowper and Dickson (Qld) operations and finance director, Damien Attwood, told MWM.
Independence compromised?
Critics say such payments are at odds with the ‘Teal’ selling point of independence. “The whole idea of becoming an MP – especially for independents, who believe in community engagement – is representing your constituents’ values and interests”, former Groom (Qld) and Berowra (NSW) campaign manager, Josh Addison, said.
C200 donated $10,857,934 to independent candidates before May’s election, with allies shelling out millions more.
What’s next for the teals, back to basics or politics as usual?
Meanwhile, it’s an open secret in teal circles that some candidates and campaigns agreed to hand over their databases of volunteers and donors to groups aligned with C200, prior to being allowed to run or before a campaign’s debts would be cleared. MWM has learned of data transfers from independent campaigns in Berowra and Cowper (NSW), while non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with candidates or operatives have been confirmed in Forrest (WA), Berowra and with one aspiring candidate before she was even interviewed.
Data or financials transfer could “infringe on volunteer and donor privacy”, one source told MWM. “It positions (C200) as the default destination for money that once went directly to community-based campaigns”.
Data-driven campaigns
C200 maintains that the crowdfunder has not paid nor signed agreements with any candidate or group. On data and financials transfer, a spokesperson said C200 is “unapologetically data driven. When applying for support, we ask campaigns for insights into the strength of their campaign. How campaigns respond is entirely up to them.”
Discontent in teal ranks has been brewing in the months since community independents – who swept to prominence in 2022 – merely held their parliamentary ground at May’s election. With the passing of new donation rules described by movement founder Simon Holmes a Court as a “financial gerrymander” against teals, sources say they squandered a final, golden opportunity to boost their parliamentary footprint.
Critics blame size-fits-all messaging and tactics, coupled with a corporate culture at organisations like C200 and its allied consultants, Watershed, for taking away the movement’s magic this year. But others like Jessie Price (Bean) say they experienced no ‘top down’ interference.
Some seats (Bean included) were initially seen as unlikely pick-ups not warranting the full C200 or Watershed treatment. In more ‘promising’ regional seats, fly-in, city-based advisors like Watershed’s managing director, Nick Moraitis (Cowper), brought city-centric values and, sometimes, messaging.
Movement sources say this was a fatal mistake in both Cowper and Wannon, where expected victories turned into narrow defeats. “They simply don’t understand rural electorates”, Forrest candidate Sue Chapman says.
For its part, C200 sees positives in May’s result, citing the increased Australia-wide vote for independents, up from 5.3 per cent in 2022 to more than 7 per cent this year. This number came from 38 candidates, double the 19 who ran in 2022.
Top ten donations received
| CANDIDATE | ELECTORATE | AMOUNT REC'D | WON SEAT? |
|---|---|---|---|
| DYSON, Alexander Edward | Wannon | $2,186,936.00 | No |
| HEISE, Carolyn Gai | Cowper | $2,141,655.00 | No |
| RYAN, Monique Marie | Kooyong | $1,905,102.00 | Yes |
| DANIEL, Zoe | Goldstein | $1,834,832.00 | No |
| LEONARD, Deborah Louise | Monash | $1,788,961.00 | No |
| SMITH, Benjamin John | Flinders | $1,786,645.00 | No |
| SPENDER, Allegra May | Wentworth | $1,743,971.00 | Yes |
| SCAMPS, Sophie Anna | Mackellar | $1,729,956.00 | Yes |
| CHANEY, Katherine Ella | Curtin | $1,484,647.00 | Yes |
| MURRAY-BARTLETT, Erchana | McPherson | $1,271,066.00 | No |
Other winning independent candidates, Helen Haines (Indi) received $629,318, Zali Steggal (Warringah) $789,736, Dai Le (Fowler) $102,358, and Andrew Wilkie $66,861. Nicolette Boele (Bradfield) has not reported donations.
Return to the kitchen table?
Some in the movement saw the Teals’ 2025 campaign as a faded facsimile of 2022, when community engagement was the order of the day. The latter principles are a ‘talking around the kitchen table’ model, in which everyone affected by an issue in their community should have a say in the decision-making around it.
If its promotional videos are any guide, C200 is all for this kitchen table politics.“The beating heart of the community independents movement (is) community groups (and this) really differentiates (us) from the politics of old”, C200 Executive Director Byron Fay told viewers in one clip.
Yet it’s Fay who draws most of the anger from some movement sources longing for the community engagement ‘magic’ of 2022. They speak of angry, micromanaging emails from the C200 boss, responding to comments critical of the crowdfunder during local campaign Zoom meetings.
Sources close to C200 stuck up for Fay, insisting his acumen is an asset in the wicked world of politics.
Many close to the teal movement see the disappointments of 2025 not as an opportunity for retribution, but as a chance to get better. While the recent changes to electoral and donation laws were brought in to kill off the teals, some see a bright side in the threat they also pose to what they see as C200’s stranglehold on the ecosystem surrounding independents.
“Perhaps (these new laws) will be the accidental catalyst for a new, centrist movement, one that prioritises collaboration, integrity, and genuine representation”, Berowra (NSW) independent candidate Tina Brown told MWM.
For its part, C200 sees no need for change and wants to remain “part of the vibrant and decentralised community independents movement”.
Unlike political parties, it is a ground-up movement, not top-down, and operates without power structures,
a spokesperson said.
Nonetheless, grassroots “voices of” groups are seeing a resurgence in seats like Bennelong (NSW), Kooyong (Vic.) Solomon (NT) and Kingsford Smith (NSW), part of an effort to get back to the basics that brought Teals so much success in 2022.
“We’re at a crossroads”, Atwood concluded.
An Adelaide-based graduate in Media Studies, with a Masters in Social Policy, I was an editor who covered current affairs, local government and sports for various publications before deciding on a change-of-vocation in 2002.