They’re in the money. Who? The Teal MPs who represent Australia’s wealthiest electorates, of course, writes Mark Sawyer.
On Monday the Australian Electoral Commission reported on the financial disclosure returns of the non-party candidates who contested the May 21 federal election.
This provided an insight into the money that coursed through the successful campaigns of the Teal candidates, who won seats from Liberal MPs in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
The campaign made a household name of Simon Holmes a Court, the founder of Climate 200, ”the community crowd-funded initiative” formed to back candidates sympathetic to stronger action on climate change, integrity in politics and better treatment of women in politics.
Climate 200 was the biggest donor of the campaign, spending $5.9 million, while receiving $8.5m in donations itself. The largest donors to Climate 200 were billionaire Scott Farquhar ($1.5m) and Boundless Earth ($1.18m), chaired by Farquhar’s Atlassian partner Mike Cannon-Brookes.
Other big donors included Nicholas Fairfax ($170,000 spread between Climate 200, and Teal candidates in Wentworth and North Sydney) and Alex Turnbull ($25,000 in Wentworth).
Walking the talk on transparency
In keeping with their pledge to bring greater transparency into politics, the Teals and other independents are out in the open before the major parties disclose their spending. That won’t be known until February.
Yes, that does sound odd, and there was mutterings on Twitter on Monday. How could treasurer Josh Frydenberg have spent $0 on all those billboards as he waged his failed campaign to ward off the Teal challenge in Kooyong?
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According to the AEC: ”Candidates and Senate groups that are endorsed by a political party are able to provide a nil disclosure and roll their reporting into the political party return for the 2021-22 financial year, which will be available for public inspection on Wednesday, 1 February 2023.”
We are really seeing only a third of the money that gave Australians the best democracy money can buy. The AEC said 1590 of the 1624 candidates who contested the May election lodged returns – 1001 of whom lodged nil returns. But back to the money we do know about.
The best-funded Teal candidate was Allegra Spender in Wentworth. She received 661 donations, generating $1,927,906, with her total campaign spending $2,124,058.
”Among [Spender’s] donations were hundreds of thousands of dollars from Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 group,” news.com reported. ”The group donated money to Ms Spender’s campaign eight times, totalling $717,776 – including a donation of $1 on November 2 last year.
Frydenberg’s nemesis in Kooyong, Monique Ryan, received $1,841,237 from 3762 donors. Holmes a Court made $20,232 in independent donations to her campaign in addition to Climate 200’s donations totalling $749,347. Her total electoral expenditure was $2,122,231.
In North Sydney, Kylea Tink raised $1,825,072 from 945 donors – including $786,532 from Climate 200 – for her $1,379,196 campaign.
In Goldstein, Zoe Daniel received $1,745,039 from 1999 donors – including $709,840 from Climate 200 – for her $1,594,345 campaign.
In Mackellar, Sophie Scamps received donations from 828 donors totalling $1,558,960. She spent $1,216,746 on her campaign.
In Curtin, Kate Chaney received $1,333,093 from 653 donors, with a total electoral expenditure of $973,224.
The above are new MPs. Sitting MPs that received donations from Climate 200 include Helen Haines and Andrew Wilkie. In all, Climate 200 backed 23 candidates, of whom 11 were successful and four were already in parliament. The amounts varied: one unsuccessful candidate complained to MWM of receiving only ”a small matching amount” from Holmes a Court.
”Another example of how the playing field is tilted in favour of the parties / incumbents,” Holmes a Court complained about the early disclosures, missing the notion that a successful Teal MP becomes an incumbent. Zali Steggall, who first won in 2019 and whose campaign livery birthed the Teal concept, was backed by Climate 200 and spent $768,000 on her 2022 campaign.
By contrast, Dai Le, who received nothing like the adulatory media coverage garnered by the Teals, won the western Sydney seat of Fowler from Labor on a much smaller budget. She spent $161,131 and raised $81,177, from 123 donors.
Rob is hooked
There is another player on the scene. The independent senator for the ACT, David Pocock, who detailed aspects of his funding before the AEC’s disclosures, received $50,000 from Boundless Earth and $224,000 from Rob Keldoulis.
Rob who? The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Monday that:
[the] largest individual donor to Climate 200 and the teals is Rob Keldoulis, a relatively unknown share trading firm founder from Sydney’s eastern suburbs, who put in $1.85 million and is readying for more donations ahead of the NSW and Victorian state elections.
Keldoulis, photographed cross-legged in T-shirt, frayed jeans and sneakers, presents (and we know, you can’t judge a book …) as the tres casual, laid-back, master of the universe who alleviates his undoubted angst about the warming planet by throwing his money at the right sort of political candidates. ”I’m hooked,” Keldoulis told the SMH, revealing perhaps unwittingly how intoxicating it can be to help swing an election.
So what of the old parties, you ask? Three extra months to hand in their homework seems generous. Political integrity types have long called for live-time disclosure, rather than belatedly on one day of the year. We won’t learn of their funding details from the 2022 election until next February. And sure, we can assume both Labor and the Coalition will be in hoc to fossil fuel corporations and other donors.
What Monday’s disclosures can tell us is that the Teals have a secure funding base to go with their volunteer armies. Australia’s richest electorates look at this stage to be lost to the Liberal Party, barring energy and economic crises.
The disclosures also remind us that there is no distinction between ”clean” and ”dirty” money in politics. The Teals, and to an extent the Greens, are lavished donations from tech billionaires and other new-economy people who will do even better for themselves in the transition to the clean-energy economy. All well and good, as long as nobody tries to tell us this is a ”new politics”.
Special Minister of State Don Farrell is looking at changes to electoral donations laws.
And what of the real money man?
It’s almost enough to make you respect Clive Palmer for one thing. The mining baron dwarfs all comers with his election spending. Those yellow election ads were a visual pollutant on billboards all over Australia, possibly the most ubiquitous and ugly advertising carpet bombing since that bloke with the ”Advanced Medical Institute” promised Australian men LONGER LASTING something or other.
But Palmer’s ads might at least keep a few local jobs going, possibly in journalism, at least in the legacy media field, which is more than we can say for the fruits of the targeted ad spends on social media. And, though this is rarely pointed out, that sole senator elected on Palmer’s ticket, Ralph Babet, has more of a casting vote than any of the Teals, thanks to the numbers in the Senate.
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Mark Sawyer is a journalist with extensive experience in print and digital media in Sydney, Melbourne and rural Australia.