How fossil fuel cash is powering Peter Dutton's anti-climate election push

While the world sweated through consecutive 'warmest years on record' in 2023 and 2024, a surge of fossil fuel cash poured into the accounts of Australia's major political parties.

Analysis of newly published political donation data details how the fossil fuel industry is aligning its vast financial support behind the Peter Dutton-led Coalition, ahead of another federal election fight over the future of Australian climate policy and the Coalition’s embrace of coal, gas and nuclear.

This week, the Australian Electoral Commission published the political donation disclosures for the 2023-24 financial year. Analysis of the data shows how, in the midst of a global climate crisis, vast amounts of money flowed from fossil fuel companies and into the coffers of the major political parties.

Australia’s fossil fuel industry giants: including Woodside, Santos, Chevron and Adani were joined by several of the industry’s major lobby groups in gifting a combined $3.8 million to Labor, Liberals and the Nationals parties, and their fundraising vehicles.

The Peter Dutton-led Coalition was, by far, the largest beneficiary of fossil fuel funding. Across the disclosures reported by the federal and state entities of the Coalition - including fundraising bodies known as ‘associated entities’ - almost $3 million was received from the fossil fuel industry. A total of $1.46 million was received by the Liberal Party directly, with the Nationals reporting an additional $155,000. A further $1.34 million was reported by the Coalition-aligned fundraising bodies.

Loyal Coalition backer Gina Rinehart used her family business, Hancock Prospecting, to tip $500,000 into the Liberal Party, representing the largest single fossil fuel donation reported during the 2023-24 financial year.

Despite being the incumbent party of government federally, the Australian Labor Party received less than a third of what was raised by the Coalition and its fundraising bodies from fossil fuel donors. Labor reported receiving just over $832,000 in fossil fuel cash - still a substantial amount - with Labor’s largest fossil fuel donor being Low Emission Technology Australia.

With a somewhat deceptive name, Low Emission Technology (LET) Australia serves as an advocacy group for Australia’s coal and gas industries and works to promote carbon capture and storage technologies. Similarly large donations were made by oil and gas giant Santos, which chipped in $71,500, and another fossil fuel lobby group, Australian Energy Producers (the rebranded Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association) donated almost $95,000 to Labor.

Fossil fuel industry lobby groups were particularly prolific in funding political parties in 2023-24. Long-time pro-coal advocate, the Minerals Council of Australia, was a major contributor to the National Party, providing the Coalition junior partner with a $60,275 gift. Other sizeable donations to the Nationals came from LET Australia and Santos.

The Australian Greens did not report any donations from the fossil fuel industry, nor did any of the independents who made donation disclosures. The independents David Pocock, Allegra Spender, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Kylea Tink, Zali Steggall, Kate Chaney, Zoe Daniel and the Climate 200 funding group - all reported receiving no fossil fuel industry cash.

The fossil fuel funding reported by Labor and the Coalition appears to be a major increase from the amounts reported for the prior 12-month period. It also shows a significant shift in favour towards the Coalition.

In 2022-23, fossil fuel companies spread their gifts fairly equally between Labor and the Coalition. But ahead of an election that could determine whether Australia follows the new Trump presidency into outright climate denial - including a purge of its climate science capabilities - the Coalition raking in more than three times as much fossil fuel funding as Labor is a worrying signal that the fossil fuel industry had already begun to flex its influence.

Peter Dutton will go to the election attempting to convince Australians to back his nuclear power plan, a plan that has repeatedly been criticised for being costly, unrealistic, and generating new risks for energy security. It will also require the propping up Australia’s ageing coal and gas power generators to extend their operational life - a feature that has likely contributed to a surge in financial support from the fossil fuel industry.

Millions funnelled through Coalition’s funding entities

The 2023-24 disclosures show substantial amounts of fossil fuel money going into two key fundraising bodies for the Liberals and Nationals. More than $1.3 million in total.

The Cormack Foundation, which is associated with the Liberal Party, took in huge donations from BHP and Wesfarmers. Meanwhile, Laneway Assets - an entity created to funnel funds into the National Party - received about a third of its fossil fuel funds from Adani Mining.

These associated fundraising bodies work to obscure the sources of political party funding. From a cursory look, it would not be immediately apparent that an entity called ‘Laneway Assets’ was affiliated with a political party or that the donations it receives ultimately contribute to a party’s funding sources. Such bodies provide a layer of coverage for major corporate players to make donations, potentially limiting scrutiny that a prominent company like BHP may attract when donating such substantial amounts to a particular side of politics.

But that’s exactly what an entity like Laneway Assets was set up to do. It has served as the main vehicle for donations into the Nationals from some unsavoury industries, including fossil fuel companies, tobacco companies and gambling companies.

While no Labor-aligned fundraising bodies appear to have received fossil fuel donations, the Mining and Energy Union, which is affiliated with the Labor Party and which recently split from the CFMEU, received almost $3.4 million in ‘other receipts’ from fossil fuel entities. The Mining and Energy Union made a $2,500 contribution to the Labor Party in 2023-24.

Millions in dark money still plague Australia’s democracy

At this point, it is necessary to acknowledge that the financial data published by the Australian Electoral Commission this week relates to only the 2023-24 financial year – that is, the 12 months ending 30 June 2024.

Donation data for the current financial year, which will include the 2025 federal election, will not be published until February 2026. That is well after the votes in this year’s federal election will be cast and well after the ability to scrutinise the financial contributions being made by fossil fuel companies to the major political parties would be most useful.

Additionally, it must be noted that we have limited visibility of the sources of political donations. Analysis completed by the Guardian Australia estimated that almost half of all political party funding remains ‘dark money’ of unknown origin. This is primarily due to the generous disclosure threshold – which was $16,300 in 2023-24 – with donations less than that amount not required to be disclosed.

The Albanese government is seeking to reform the donation disclosure rules, including a lowering of the disclosure threshold to $1,000. This would provide much greater transparency around the sources of large donations, but the reforms are being paired with election campaign spending and donation limits that may disproportionately impact independent candidates.

Any such reforms will come too late to be useful for the 2025 federal election.

A note on ‘Donations’ verses ‘Other Receipts’

The AEC delineates financial payments to political parties as either “donations” or as “other receipts”. This allows political parties to distinguish between money received as donations and payments that aren’t ‘gifts’, such as payments from electoral commissions as public funding, interest earned from bank deposits, or other money received in return for services.

Regardless of how they are categorised by political parties, payments from corporate entities like fossil fuel companies almost always amount to donations. Political parties will sometimes seek to categorise the ”fees” companies pay to attend special events or lunches as ‘other receipts’, because the company has received something in return (the lunch).

But these event fees are usually greatly inflated, such as Peter Dutton charging $10,000 a head for a private dinner in Sydney, which - let’s be real - is purely designed as a fundraising opportunity for the Liberal Party. Such contributions amount to donations - no one is really paying $10,000 for the dinner itself - and so they have been aggregated as such in this analysis.

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