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Coal Australia denies its donations to the ‘community-driven association’ amount to astroturfing, but critics accuse the group of misleading the public
An “independent, community-driven association” that ran anti-Labor adverts during the last federal election was entirely funded by a coal industry lobby group, the Guardian can reveal.
Energy for Australians accepted more than $1m from Coal Australia – a group advocating for coal whose members include major miners Yancoal, Peabody, New Hope and Whitehaven.
Cory Bernardi says he will pay for multiple flights with Pauline Hanson in a plane registered to Gina Rinehart’s company amid confusion about whether the trips may contravene South Australia’s new laws banning political donations.
Saturday’s SA election is the first since the new laws came into effect. There are a range of exemptions to the ban, but it is not clear if any of them apply to One Nation as parties, candidates and the electoral commission work through the “world-leading” laws for the first time.
Climate 200 has reported a surge in first-time donors in November off the back of a donation-matching campaign comparing the Coalition and Peter Dutton to the politics of Donald Trump.
The funding aggregator claims to have raised $377,000 from 3,900 donations including 1,373 people who donated to it for the first time, the biggest wave of first-time supporters since it was launched in 2021.
Labor and Coalition would have missed out on $4.1m and $4.7m in donations after public funding boost, while the Greens would have been $2.9m better off
The Greens and independent MPs who ran low-cost campaigns have emerged as the biggest winners from Labor’s proposed donation cap and increased public funding of elections, data shows.
According to a Guardian Australia analysis of 2021-22 data, the Greens would have lost just $2.7m in donations if Labor’s proposed $20,000 cap had been law at the time, a sum more than made up for by a $5.6m increase in public funding. In net terms, the Greens would have been $2.9m better off.
Australia’s two major political parties will more than double their public funding at the 2028 federal election to reap a combined $140m under the government’s proposed changes to electoral laws, according to the organisation which funded successful teal independent candidates at the 2022 election.
Climate 200 has calculated the likely increase in the amount the Labor and Liberal parties could claim in public funding at the 2028 election, after the proposed new system is slated to take effect.
Donation and electoral spending caps could pass parliament as early as this fortnight, with Labor confident the Coalition will help it block campaigns of the size run by Clive Palmer at the national level and teal independents at the local level.
But the bill, to be introduced next week, could spark outrage from independents, emerging and minor parties, with plans to increase public funding of elections from $3.35 a vote to $5.
Climate 200, the fundraising giant that bankrolled the teal independent wave at the last election, has thrown its support behind independent campaigns in nine more Coalition-held seats.
After months of speculation, the group said it would support independent campaigns in the Queensland electorates of McPherson, Moncrief, Fisher and Fairfax as well as the New South Wales electorates Cowper and Bradfield, and Casey, Monash and Wannon in Victoria.
Jim Chalmers said the government didn’t create a new system for the energy payments (so everyone gets it) because it is done through the energy retailers, who don’t have people’s income data.
It’s not a cash payment paid directly to you – instead, it is paid through the energy sector, which takes money off your bill. In this case, $75 a quarter.
I don’t see it in political terms. I think primarily the motivation of this budget is to help people who are doing it tough. More help is on the way for people who are doing it tough via the tax system, via their energy bills and with rent assistance and cheaper medicines and in other ways as well. That’s our primary motivation.
Once you go beyond providing this to people on pensions and payments, you have to design a whole new system in order to create a new distinction. We are providing this energy bill relief to every household. We think that’s a good way to help things make things easier. Some of the other measures are more targeted.
On Tuesday Farrell reiterated Labor’s intention to cap political spending and donations, accusing unnamed teal independents of “saying to us that they agree with banning big money, just not theirs”.
Advance Australia, the conservative lobby group that claimed success for defeating the voice referendum, more than doubled the amount of donations it received during the 2022-23 financial year.
But the origin of almost half of the funds remains unknown.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is speaking to ABC RN, and says news that the inflation rate has plunged to a two-year low of 4.1% is “welcoming, encouraging progress”.
… We know that people are still under pressure and we need to not be complacent about it. We need to continue to work as we have with our three point plan, having the surplus, making sure we deal with cost of living pressures without putting pressure on inflation, and dealing with … supply-chain issues as well.
With parliament resuming next week, this is a wake-up call that 2024 is the last chance for meaningful democratic reform ahead of the 2025 election …
Australians should go to the next election with strict political donation disclosure laws, truth in political advertising laws in force and information about who’s meeting ministers made public as a matter of course.
The Albanese government is being urged to expand voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds and people in prison in submissions to an inquiry into the 2022 election.
The academic Prof George Williams has proposed voluntary voting for 16 and 17-year-olds, and regulating “electoral lies” to prevent “baseless claims” such as Donald Trump’s about unproven electoral fraud in the US.
Labor claims dinner at Club Taree raised $18,000 from four donors and gave them access to premier
Gladys Berejiklian has said she cannot remember whether she attended an “intimate fundraising dinner” at Club Taree in May 2018, where Labor claims illegal property donations were made.
Labor used question time in New South Wales parliament on Wednesday to ask about the event and donations made to the campaign of the mid-north coast MP Stephen Bromhead, the member for Myall Lakes, in 2018.
Sydney lord mayor approached by police investigating accusations the emissions reduction minister relied on a falsified document to attack her. Follow all the day’s political news live
That’s where we’ll leave the live blog for the day. Thanks for following along.
It’s been another messy day. Many say the medevac repeal has made it one of parliament’s darkest.
Another development on the Angus Taylor front.
The City of Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, has been approached by police to provide a statement for their investigation into accusations Taylor relied on a falsified document to attack her travel-related emissions. The council said in a statement:
The opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, says there have been more than 400 ‘senseless loss of life’ since 2001. Follow all the day’s politics – live
Cormann’s full response to the order to produce the Morrison-Fuller transcript has been tabled. The full text of the letter is below.
Dear President
I refer to the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator the Hon Penny Wong, and agreed by the Senate on 2 December 2019, requesting documents associated with phone call between the Prime Minister and the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force that took place on Tuesday, 26 November 2019.
Labor is furious at the government’s response to an order to produce the transcript of the Morrison-Fuller phone call about the Angus Taylor police investigation.
The Labor leader in the Senate, Penny Wong, read the government’s response to the Senate after it was provided to her at the outset of Senate proceedings by the finance minister, Mathias Cormann. The letter simply referred the Senate to previous answers and said the documents would be subject to a public interest immunity claim because they relate to a police investigation.
This is transparency from the Morrison government. This is the transparency and integrity, or lack thereof from the Morrison government.”
Anna Katzmann said Huang could only use the money to pay debt to ATO or for living or legal expenses
A judge will today reveal her reasons for slapping a $140m asset freezing order on controversial businessman and political donor Huang Xiangmo after an application by the Australian taxation office.
At an urgent hearing in Sydney on Monday, federal court judge Anna Katzmann ordered Huang not to dispose of assets worth up to the $140.9m claimed by the ATO, including more than $6m worth of property in Sydney and an apartment in Hong Kong.
Labor will resume demands for MP to make a statement to parliament on her links to Chinese Communist party groups. All today’s events in Canberra, live
Frank Bainimarama will meet Scott Morrison today – it is his first visit since becoming Fijian prime minister.
The other big issue apparently keeping the National party up at night, is plant and legume based foods and liquids being sold with the same terminology as animal products.
Because apparently, vegetarians and vegans are very, very confused and don’t realise that almond milk doesn’t come from cows. As Helen Davidson reported on the weekend from the National party conference:
The Nationals meeting also voted in favour of a motion to lobby the federal government to change labelling requirements on vegan food, preventing products such as soy milk, almond milk and vegan meat from being branded as such.
Under current laws, only milk from cows can be labelled “milk” without an added qualifier.
For a special membership fee, developers will have access to Liberal National party events such as cocktail receptions
The Queensland Liberal National party will offer property developers free cocktails and other perks as part of a paid “diamond membership” package, following the state’s ban on them making political donations.
At its annual convention, which is being held across three days this weekend, the party said it would institute the new membership scheme, which allows developers and others to pay a $990 special membership fee.
Al-Jazeera journalist posing as gun campaigner films senior party figures in Washington DC soliciting financial support to help One Nation seize the balance of power
Senior One Nation figures James Ashby and Steve Dickson have been caught seeking millions of dollars of political donations from US gun rights group the National Rifle Association in a bid to seize the balance of power and weaken Australia’s gun laws.
The revelations are contained in an al-Jazeera investigation which used hidden cameras and a journalist posing as a grassroots gun campaigner to expose the far-right party’s extraordinary efforts to secure funding in Washington DC in September.
Minister declared mobile office’s remodelling but there is no record of required repayment of gift’s value
Labor has accused Peter Dutton of breaching ministerial rules by failing to pay taxpayers for the value of his mobile office caravan’s refurbishment, gifted to him by a business in north Brisbane.
In May 2017 Dutton declared that Kedron Caravans had refurbished the caravan’s interior, but the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has revealed he is not among those who paid for gifts valued over $300 in 2017.