1 week Ago By Paul Sakkal
Wealthy donors sensing a Labor win are tipping big money into Anthony Albanese’s campaign to give him a financial edge over Peter Dutton, who will hit up Melbourne blue-bloods on Thursday night to fund a late campaign advertising splurge. Linking Dutton to US President Donald Trump’s policies has also contributed to the highest ever volume of donations from Labor’s left-wing donor base, which has doubled to 14,000 over recent months, according to a party source. As a comparison, Climate 200’s crowdfunding vehicle was funded by 11,200 people at the last election.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton gestures as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese watches during their TV debate in Sydney. Credit: AP The leaders and senior MPs are spending many lunch and dinner meals with donors who help fund each party’s campaign machines, which pump out advertising, corflutes and mailouts in the final weeks of the campaign when disengaged voters tune in before the election. The opposition leader will hold an evening event with a small group of high-net-worth donors in Melbourne’s CBD on Thursday night after a fundraising event in Tasmania over the weekend.
Albanese will attend a $1500 a head fundraiser in Sydney next week and was hosted at the South Yarra penthouse of private equity rich-lister Ben Gray last month. As late as mid-March, Dutton had been the bookmakers’ favourite to be prime minister, even though the Coalition requires a 20-seat haul to win the election. But win expectations have turned dramatically since then, with Labor’s odds dropping from $2.
50 (equating to a win probability of 40 per cent) to $1.32, or about 75 per cent probability. Sources for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private dealings between parties and donors.
A senior Labor minister said there had been fresh offers from rich political donors in the past fortnight. Two figures involved in campaign financing said there had been a shift towards the government in attracting cash from the top end of town. “They like to pick winners,” one Labor source said of well-off donors, although some make a rule of donating equally.
Being seen as the likely winner spurred a strong flow of donations to Dutton in the early months of the year. At points, he embraced the mantle of favouritism, including when he declared “we will win” in mid-February. Dutton attended a cocktail event at the home of Sydney pub mogul Justin Hemmes in early March.
Labor attacked Dutton for leaving Queensland at a time when Cyclone Alfred was about to hit, despite Albanese attending a fundraiser on the same day. However, Labor spent days castigating Dutton before Albanese’s event was reported. Labor sources said February was a record month of donations from grassroots members, reflecting the level of enthusiasm among activists to defeat a Coalition leader who is viewed as conservative on migration, human rights and “woke” culture.
The party attributed the strong donations to policies such as Labor’s $8.5 billion Medicare boost, HECS/HELP debt cuts and childcare support . Labor’s sense that Dutton had copied policies from Trump was also seen as vital.
Labor and the Coalition collaborated to legislate stricter rules around political donations this year. Those rules will come into effect at the next election and will cap at $50,000 the amount a donor can give to any party or candidate each year, although a person can give $50,000 to the different state branches of each party. The move was designed to ban the likes of mining magnate Clive Palmer putting tens of millions into election campaigns.
Teal MPs fear the cap on spending in seats was aimed at kneecapping independents from raising the money required to defeat incumbents from major parties. Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter .
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