Malcolm Turnbull is said to have donated $1m of his money to help the Liberal party pay for television advertising, direct mail-outs and polling in the final weeks of the election campaign.
The donation was made in the second half of the eight-week campaign into a general pool of funds, which the party used to combat Labor’s damaging Medicare campaign, according to reports.
The prime minister’s office will not deny the story, issuing a statement: “Donations to the Liberal party are disclosed in accordance with the requirements of the Electoral Act.”
The federal director of the Liberal party, Tony Nutt, has released a statement in response to the story, saying the claim that the party is “either in debt or broke” is false.
But he did not deny that Turnbull donated $1m to help the party get through the election. He repeated the line that donations to the Liberal party were disclosed in accordance with the requirements of the Electoral Act.
Key conservatives inside the Coalition had complained during the election campaign that Turnbull’s superannuation changes had so upset core Liberal supporters that party donations were being affected, but no evidence was produced.
John Roskam, the director of the free market thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs, also said Liberal party donors were aggrieved by Turnbull’s superannuation policy but he could not provide evidence that was not anecdotal.
The Liberal party did struggle during the campaign to match the financial might of Labor.
The union movement and the leftwing activist group GetUp campaigned on Labor’s behalf in key marginal seats, flying supporters around the country to try to dislodge conservatives such as Andrew Nikolic in Tasmania and Jamie Briggs in South Australia.
The unions and GetUp also targeted the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, and George Christensen in Queensland, who retained their seats.
Turnbull’s $1m donation would have helped the Coalition combat Labor’s Medicare scare campaign in the final weeks of the election.
The Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese said on Friday the donation was “an extraordinary revelation” and called for more transparency around political donations
Since the election, there have been rolling recriminations within the Coalition, with Liberal and National MPs blasting the strategic direction of the election campaign.
Liberals in New South Wales say important information was withheld from the state campaign, leading to a diversion of resources to the wrong seats.
Some Liberals also complain that Nutt was inaccessible, even to MPs in key marginal seats.
Nutt has been federal director of the Liberal party since December 2015.
He replaced the long-standing director Brian Loughnane, husband of Peta Credlin, who was Tony Abbott’s chief of staff.
Turnbull was treasurer of the Liberal party in 2002 and 2003.
