Australia’s richest philanthropists have defied the Morrison government’s warning for corporate leaders to “stick to their knitting” on climate change by bankrolling a war chest for independents including Zali Steggall to turf Tony Abbott out of politics.
Documents released by the Australian Electoral Commission on Monday revealed Ms Steggall amassed a $1.1 million war chest in her battle to win the former prime minister’s Sydney seat of Warringah.
Billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has emerged as one of the biggest donors to independent candidates calling for action on climate change at the May 2019 election.
Last night, the Atlassian co-founder took to social media to highlight a new KPMG report that warns climate change is the biggest threat to growth over the next three years according to CEOs across all industries.
What do you know… turns out they were “sticking to their knitting” after all… https://t.co/VVWl94iGDT
— Mike Cannon-Brookes 👨🏼💻🧢 (@mcannonbrookes) November 4, 2019
“What do you know? Turns out they were ‘sticking to their knitting’ after all,” he said.
But only a fraction of Ms Steggall’s campaign was funded by billionaires like Mr Cannon-Brookes, who donated the $50,000 to Climate 200.
The majority of the donations for Ms Steggall’s campaign were below the $13,800 disclosure threshold, with her campaign raising $754,251 from 1369 individual donors.
Ms Steggall’s campaign donors also included Southern Cross Star Group founder Neil Balnaves, who donated $20,000, and businessman Rob Purves and his sister Sandra, who donated $104,000.
Last week, Ms Steggall criticised the Prime Minister’s call for debate on legislation to ban consumer boycotts against coal companies.
“Are we a free-market democracy or Orwell’s 1984?” she said.
According to the Australian Electoral Commission, climate change activist Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 fundraising group raised about $450,000 for independents.
He vowed to double the fundraising for the next election and raise $1 million for candidates targeting climate change action.
Malcolm Turnbull’s son, Alex also raised around $20,000 for ACT independent Senate candidate Anthony Pesec.
Victorian MP Helen Haines raised $421,001 from 1002 donors for her campaign for the seat of Indi, and former Wentworth MP Kerryn Phelps raised $218,690.
Oliver Yates, who ran against Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong, Victoria, raised $362,578.
But the fundraising by wealthy climate change philanthropists is small change compared to the estimated $70 million election expenditure by pro-coal billionaire Clive Palmer.
He will outline his fundraising and expenditure in the party donation disclosures in February.
